#The Medical University of South Carolina

[gwydionmisha]

It looked pretty hinky at the time.

[genderqueerpositivity]

Just how many people are transgender in the United States is not clear, but in South Carolina it could be nearly 3,000 children, according to a Post and Courier analysis.

In a letter sent amid the budget debate, MUSC said emphatically it does not offer gender reassignment surgery to anyone under 18. Its services for transgender children, offered since 2007, include “access to mental health providers, endocrine medicine providers, social workers and dieticians,” Dr. David Zaas, CEO of MUSC Health’s Charleston Division, wrote in the letter dated March 29.

But the letter didn’t appease Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who authored the ban on MUSC providing gender-transitioning services for minors.

“It doesn’t really say what they do, that’s the problem,” said the Spartanburg Republican, responding to Democrats who accused him of trying to deprive children who may be suicidal of mental health care. “They expressly say what they don’t do, but they don’t clarify what they do.”

Denying that he wanted to withhold lifesaving counseling from any child, he added, “I do, however, think it’s inappropriate for the state to fund a clinic whose whole purpose is to encourage a child to make a decision that may be irreversible.”

Approval of the budget directive that applies only to MUSC came more than a year after a Democrat in the House filed a bill broadly banning gender-transitioning surgery and hormones for anyone under 18. That bill, co-sponsored by one other Democrat and 28 Republicans, drew the ire of his party leaders and got national attention, but it went nowhere in the Statehouse.

″(Opponents of transitioning) tried to pass gender-affirming bans last year and failed at passing a ban,” Condon said. “So instead (they) just used financial pressure with the budget proviso that was included.”

Officially, a state budget directive applies only to taxpayer money approved by the Legislature. But it can be virtually impossible for any public agency to prove a specific program and its employees are wholly funded by other sources. And ignoring legislators’ budget orders can put future public funding at risk.

This fiscal year, MUSC is getting $188.9 million in state funding, but that is 3.5 percent of its $5.4 billion total budget, according to state budget documents and MUSC officials.

After first being assured MUSC could still continue transgender care for minors without touching state funding, Condon said there was an apparent change of heart later last year.

“They felt like the easier way to handle it was to stop providing this care,” she said. So, for the doctors who were prescribing care, “now the doctor’s boss is saying, ‘Don’t do it because it is politically unfavorable,’” Condon said.

MUSC also canceled an LGBT health conference it was slated to host later this month, which is now being picked up by Condon’s group without any participation from MUSC.

It remains unclear when exactly MUSC ended the services. But the result stands Mia among an estimated 150 patients of that pediatric clinic in downtown Charleston scrambling to find treatment elsewhere, even as they have yet to receive official notice from MUSC.

[frances-baby-houseman]

I would have bled out in the parking lot

Amber Nicole Thurman's death is on Trump's hands

Bess Kalb

Sep 17

In 2019, about six weeks after my first child was born, I found myself on the bathroom floor in a small, but nonetheless unsettling puddle of blood.

“Oh no,” I remember thinking. “I just did the laundry.”

I called out my husband’s name, but the sound caught in my throat. The pain I felt inhaling to get enough air out of my lungs to yell the two syllables in “Char-lie” jabbed my guts like a bicycle spoke to the abdomen.

So I was quiet, trying to keep breathing in a way that didn’t move anything inside me, and the pain pulsed a bit, then steadied, then dulled, then evaporated into whatever hell ether it came from.

Because there is no G-d (unless there is, in which case I abbreviated His name so as not to desecrate it, and also thank you, King of the Universe, for subscribing to this newsletter) this was the one time in my life I hadn’t brought my phone with me to the bathroom.

I decided to sort of slither-lumber to the door like a lame harbor seal, because I didn’t want to stand and loosen the spoke that had just stabbed me. I reached for the knob and let the door creak open.

The cat was there, looking at me right at eye level, keenly aware what was happening, and completely unmoved by it.

“You are dying,” he blinked, “Pity. Have a nice time.” He sashayed away.

Fortunately, our house in Los Angeles was small enough that from the bathroom door one could see everything. My husband was sitting on the couch with our infant, and I knocked on the open door to summon him. Within one one thousandth of a second, he set the baby on the (since-recalled) donut pillow and was holding my head.

I sat up. I breathed. No pain. I took a picture of the bloody mess on my husband’s phone, texted it to myself, he found my phone, then I texted the picture to my OBGYN.

Apologies for being graphic, but within the puddle there was something roughly the size and shape and color of a fig.

“Is this ok?” I said to my doctor, the bicycle spoke scraping lightly at my insides again from all the lumbering.

“Come in,” she replied.

Within two hours, I was in the waiting room of her office, accompanied by my terrified but SMILING mother, who was still, as is the Jewish custom, in town for “a few days or so” after the birth.

An ultrasound which felt like the finger of Satan himself revealed there was retained placenta in my uterus. If I hadn’t come in, there would have been more hemorrhaging, then sepsis, then whatever the cat foretold.

The next day, I was in surgery getting a Dilation and Curettage.

I went home, pumped the anesthesia milk, then fell asleep perfectly fine, my sweet newborn cooing merrily in the bassinet next to his alive mother.

Amber Nicole Thurman’s story was the same as mine, but it happened to her in Georgia in 2024, not California in 2019. She was a Black woman in a healthcare system that disproportionately kills Black women, especially postpartum. In 2021, the Black maternal mortality rate was nearly three times the rate it is for white women. Post-Roe, the toll is and will continue to be staggering.

Because post-Roe, the procedure that saved my life, the D&C, is something doctors cannot perform in states where matters of life and death have been left up to non-medical Christian-supremacist superstitions.

I know the pain Amber Thurman felt when that placenta dislodged and carved its tiny, treacherous hole in her uterine wall. I know the terror she felt when she saw the blood, and the rush of dread when she thought of what her child would do without her.

And when I vote in November for Kamala Harris and every progressive down-ballot candidate, I will do it because she can’t. And I will do it so that women in Georgia and Idaho and Texas and North Dakota and South Dakota and Utah, Arizona, Nebraska Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, South Carolina, and West Virginia won’t have to meet the same completely preventable doom.

This election isn’t just about Amber Thurman. Every day of my lucky, breathing life is about Amber Thurman. Because the only thing that separates us, is one of us bled out under the right Supreme Court.

Let’s raise absolute federal hell about it.

-- From Bess Kalb's newsletter The Grudge Report. I pay for this substack -- though it's free-- and think this is a message worth sharing far beyond her newsletter.

[meret118]

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow sounded the alarm about Vanderbilt University, which willingly turned over the private medical records of families whose children were getting gender-affirming care at the University's medical center. But on Monday, Maddow points out that it isn't about LGBTQ issues anymore.

. . .

"It turns out that once you've convinced yourself that you have the right to go take the private medical records of people you've decided are bad people, once you've decided you have the right the take the private medical records of people because you think they don't actually have the right to make their own decisions for their own lives and their own health care, so they don't have any legitimate expectation of privacy — they don't have any legitimate expectation of protection from you," she slammed.

. . .

A week ago, she covered the Vanderbilt story, but now Tennessee's AG wants the private medical records of women who live in their states, if they travel to another state for an abortion.

. . .

It isn't only Tennessee, 19 other states signed a letter demanding that the private medical records of women who get abortions out of state be sent to their state of residence. The states that want the medical records are: Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

[drsonnet]

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives

Haaretz: Netta Ahituv May 9, 2024

When everyone who was able to flee from Gaza was doing so, Dr. David Hasan made the reverse journey. His story is a must-read for every Israeli

At the end of December 2023, when everyone who was able to flee from the Gaza Strip was doing so, Prof. David Hasan made the reverse journey. Hasan, a senior neurosurgeon and an esteemed researcher at Duke University in North Carolina, decided to fly to Cairo and from there to make his way to Rafah and enter Gaza.

"Until the war broke out, I was focused on advancing my career and taking care of my family," Hasan, who is 50, tells Haaretz in a video interview. "But this situation – which touched me from both sides [of the border] – overwhelmed me emotionally and pulled me in. I felt I had to do something to help."

Hasan was a member of the first medical team – consisting of 18 physicians from the United States, Canada and England – to enter the Strip after the start of the war. They arrived through Rahma Worldwide (an American humanitarian organization) and the organization Medical Aid for Palestine, under the auspices of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

"The UN and WHO facilitated our entry and assisted with regard to the medications and surgical equipment we brought with us," Hasan says. "But they also informed us in advance that once we entered Gaza, they would have no way of providing us with protection." The doctors were asked to sign a document waiving the UN of any responsibility for their welfare, which, he says, "made the situation all the more threatening."

Their mission was to get to the European Gaza Hospital, near Khan Yunis in the southern Strip, and spend a week there performing surgery on adults and children. Then, less than two months ago, Hasan entered Gaza again on a similar mission, and saw firsthand the transformation that had taken place there since his previous visit.

"The first thing you see in Rafah," he relates, "is miles and miles of hanging fabrics – the tents of the displaced people, which are erected against the background of the ruins of buildings. When you turn onto Saladin Road, which is the main road connecting Gaza's north and south, suddenly you see an ocean of people. These are the displaced people who live there now. As you get closer to the hospital, you see more and more people, and more and more tents."

The hospital itself looked like a refugee camp, Hasan says. "I was confused, because I had never seen so many people living inside a hospital. Every corner there was occupied by a group of people. They made use of every available item – a small curtain, a staircase, a plastic chair – and turned it into their living space. Entire families huddled on squares of two meters by two meters, and ate, drank and slept there. Walking in the hospital, you had to be careful not to step on people."

On the day he entered the Gaza Strip in December, Hasan notes, he didn't see Israeli troops or hear explosions. "I thought the war was in some kind of lull. But as soon as evening fell, heavy shelling started, and I realized that there were many Israeli forces around the hospital – you just don't see them during the day. The noise of a one-ton bomb is deafening. The first time one was dropped nearby, I happened to be standing on a stool, and I fell off, because the building shook so hard. It went on like that every five or 10 minutes. I asked the local doctors what to do, and they told me that you get used to it and that I should just keep working to distract myself from the anxiety."

Where did you sleep? What did you eat?

"I slept in the hospital, ate mostly energy bars that my wife and daughter had packed for me, and drank mineral water. The water situation there worries me the most, and since returning for the first time, I have talked about water sanitation everywhere and with everyone I can. We lost many patients due to water-related infections."

Immediately upon arriving at the hospital, the physicians began operating. "In the process, we discovered that there weren't enough anesthetics, not enough equipment and not even clean water to wash our hands between operations. Sometimes there were no gloves and sometimes we lacked basic medicines. We were compelled to perform limb amputations without anesthetics and C-sections without sedatives. In order to do as much as we could, we would operate on two patients at the same time in the same operating room."

Throughout his first week there, Hasan relates, there was constant, heavy shelling. "During the night, it was not possible to rescue anyone from the ruins, both because there was no electricity and everything was dark, and also because just being outside was dangerous. So people who were wounded during the night remained where they were until morning. Many of them died from loss of blood or reached us in worse condition because they did not receive immediate treatment. Every morning around 8, a wave of wounded people arrived who had been rescued from the ruins of the night. At that point, around nine out of 10 of them could not be saved.

"The hospital has only 250 beds, so at any given moment, you have to make difficult decisions, as there were about 1,200 wounded. He can be saved, she can't, this wound requires resources that we don't have, we may be able to treat this wound. The feeling is that it would have been possible to save many of the wounded if we had more medical equipment, intensive-care beds and the possibility of hospitalizing them for further treatment."

Are there any of the wounded whom you remember in particular?

"From a medical point of view, I remember a boy of maybe 12 or 13 years old, who arrived with bleeding from his eye, from being hit by shrapnel. It was clear that he needed surgery, but there was a two-hour line for the operating room. During the wait, a main artery burst inside his brain and blood began spurting from his eye. I'd never seen anything like that before. He died, of course.

"From a humanitarian point of view, I remember a boy about 2 years old who was seriously hurt by a bomb. He arrived together with many other children who had been in the same house. The moment I saw him I knew we would not be able to save him, so I had to give the only oxygen canister that was available to another wounded child, who had a better chance of surviving. He was alone, with no one by his side as he was dying. I took a picture of him with the phone and went out to see if anyone knew his relatives. I was told that his whole family was buried under the ruins, and that he was the only one who had been pulled out. I decided that this child would not die without someone noticing and crying over him, and I realized that it would have to be me. I held him to me, I cried over him and I named him 'Jacob.' I vowed that if I have a son, I will name him 'Jacob' in his memory.

"Another case I remember is of three siblings – a 10-year-old boy, a 6-year-old girl and a baby boy of one and a half. According to what I was told, they had been in a house that was surrounded by Hamas activity. Israeli soldiers entered the house at night. In the dark, they thought the father was a Hamas operative and they killed him. The mother ran toward the father and she was killed too. The two parents lay there dead, but outside there was bombing taking place. The three children lay down on their parents until the sun came up. Not until morning did people come to take them out of the house. Someone brought them to the hospital.

"I remember that the eldest son held the little one and calmed him because he was crying, and at the same time took care of his sister, who didn't stop shaking like a leaf in a storm. They were covered with their parents' blood. We cleaned them and I brought them some toys and small dolls that my daughter had asked me to give to the children in Gaza. When I gave them the toys, I saw a small smile and they said to me, 'Thank you, Uncle David.' You could see that they were educated and polite children. I was relieved to learn that at some point a relative came and took them. I will never forget them – the thought of the shocking night they went through and the way the 10-year-old, the senior among them, suddenly became a parental figure."

David Hasan was born and raised in Kuwait to a Muslim Palestinian family, who had immigrated there from the West Bank in 1967, following the Six-Day War. It would not be the family's last war-induced emigration. The second time was in the Gulf War, in 1990, when they relocated from Kuwait to Jordan. Hasan, who had always dreamed of becoming a doctor, was accepted to premed studies in the United States and moved there alone at the age of 18.

Where did your unusual combination of names come from – a Jewish first name and an Arab surname?

"When I moved to the United States, I connected mainly with Jews and Israelis, and they helped me acclimate. They accompanied me through various crises, and I decided to change my name from Emad to David. I also had two Jewish girlfriends, one of whom I accompanied on a visit to Israel. By then, I already had an American passport, but in Israel they wouldn't let me enter and wanted to deport me on the next flight to the United States.

"This was a traumatic experience for my girlfriend, so I insisted on talking to the security manager and told him that instead of kicking me out, they should give me a prize. 'A prize? Why should I give you a prize?' he asked. I replied that thanks to me, my girlfriend had come here for the first time in her life. Jewish donors and the State of Israel pay so much money for Jews from all over the world to visit Israel, and here I was, at my expense, inviting a Jewish woman who would never have visited here if I hadn't insisted on it. He went off, muttering, 'It's only in fucking America that Palestinians go out with Jews.' After a while, I was informed that I could enter Israel. Other than that episode, I remember the visit fondly."

Hasan is married to Lauren Hasan, who worked as a trauma surgeon, and they have a 7-year-old daughter. They live near Duke, a private university in Durham, North Carolina. Hasan does clinical work, research and teaching and is considered a leading expert in the field of cerebrovascular disorders and brain-tumor surgery. He has published more than 270 scientific articles in major journals.

Hasan does not hesitate to attest to his love for Israel and Israelis, and talks about close friends in the country. He also has close ties with the Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights and with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, with both of which, together with UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund), he is trying to promote emergency water purification projects in Gaza. They have already received approval from Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and a promise of funding from USAID.

Asked how he reconciles the Israeli-Palestinian dissonance in his life, he replies simply, "I distance myself from groups that label the Israelis as only one thing and the Palestinians as another. I focus only on moral actions and on ways in which I can help practically."

American universities, including Duke, have become an arena of protests over the war. How do you deal with this?

"We launched an initiative at the university that offers all students the opportunity to be active in assisting victims of the war in all kinds of ways, as they wish, on whichever side they choose. We thought this would allow people to channel their anger into action instead of protesting and arguing among themselves. So far, it seems to be working well. I have already brought in Duke students – Palestinians and Jews – to be part of the water project and work together as a team. I tell my medical students that just as doctors are expected to be blind to their patients' origin, skin color, religion or gender, their attitude toward victims of war should be the same – I suggest to them to think about human beings and not about 'sides.'"

Hasan practices in his life what he preaches to his students. He went to help the Gazans, but the Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas haunt his thoughts, and he brings up the subject frequently during his interview with Haaretz. On his first visit to Gaza, Hasan hoped he would be able to pressure the appropriate people to talk to members of the Hamas leadership to allow him to visit captives in order to assist them medically. He was warned that even raising the subject would endanger him and the entire delegation, but he insisted. In any event, it didn't happen, of course. No one knows if the request even reached any Hamas officials. Again, in his second visit to Gaza, in March, he put out feelers about the possibility of offering the captives medical aid. Once more, to no avail.

"I walked around the hospital and looked, searched and asked everyone I could if they had seen, heard or knew anything about them [the Israeli hostages]. I also looked for people with weapons, who might be guarding some room, but I didn't see anything like that either. As someone who saw what Gaza looks like aboveground, I can only imagine how terrible the conditions are for the hostages. I assume they don't get enough food, access to a shower or medical services. I also read the testimonies about sexual assault. God knows what condition they are in. I feel pain for them and their families and wish for their release as quickly as possible."

On the last day of the first trip to Gaza, Hasan began sweating and developed a fever. Once he left the Strip, he found out that he was infected with COVID-19, although he had of course been vaccinated. On the second trip, too, he returned home with a mysterious virus. "The situation in Gaza is the perfect storm for viruses – a combination of wounds that become infected because they cannot be cleaned properly, hospitals without proper sanitation and an absence of antibiotics. Add to that water unfit for drinking and a generally appalling sanitary situation. Almost every person we operated on died a few days later, due to infection. It suddenly came to me that surgery was like a death sentence for them. At one point I asked myself what I was doing there if I couldn't save people."

And what was your conclusion?

"That I should continue to do my best. Even if I saved one person, it is still worth the effort. From Judaism I learned that whoever saves one soul, it is as though he saved an entire world. I wanted to be a part of the hope in this conflict and make a difference, even if a small one, for the people who were hurt in it and are considered 'collateral damage.'"

What did you feel when you left the first time?

"Leaving is a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, it's a relief, and on the other hand, I was heartbroken and felt guilty for leaving these people, who need me. I have the option to leave, they don't. From being faceless numbers that I read about in the news, they became for me human beings with names, stories, aspirations and dreams. My consolation is that at least they saw that there were people who cared about them, people who had come a long way and were risking themselves for them, and maybe that would give them hope. I told them that although my body was leaving Gaza, my heart was staying there with them."

In mid-March, some two and a half months after the first visit, Hasan arrived in the Gaza Strip again. This time it was through Medtronic, one of the world's largest producers of medical devices, which was shipping equipment into Gaza. "On Friday I performed a complex operation at Duke Hospital, and within hours I was on my way to Cairo, with half a million dollars worth of medical equipment," Hasan relates. "In Egypt, I was able to get another ton of diapers and baby food, and then went on to Rafah."

There was a palpable difference between the two visits, Hasan relates. To begin with, the second time, there were fewer bombs falling, and they were smaller. On the other hand, however, he encountered more hunger and a higher density of displaced people. "I saw people who had clearly lost a great deal of weight and many more cases of infectious diseases. Mothers arrived with no milk to feed their babies, they were so weak. I remember one woman in her late 20s, an engineer by profession, who told me, 'Dr. David, my baby is crying and I can't do anything. You know Israeli women, right? Maybe you can appeal to them, in the name of the solidarity of women and mothers, to get them to request that at least we can have food for our babies sent to us? Tell them that here too there are mothers with feelings and aspirations for their children.'"

On the second visit, there were fewer medical staff evident, Hasan recalls, and those who were there showed signs of extreme burnout. "They don't earn money, their children are dying at home, and in addition, every trip to the hospital and back entails risking their life or getting bad news from home. Two doctors who worked alongside me returned home after a 24-hour shift and found that their families were buried under the ruins of the house they were in. Many of them felt that they had done their part and now had to worry about the survival of their own families. Those who remained were so exhausted that they developed indifference. A wounded person would arrive, and they would say it was preferable for the person to die, because we didn't have the means for taking care of him. I will not forget taking care of a 5-year-old boy with burns all over his body, who himself told me, 'I wish I was dead. ' At some point I also started to think that it would be better like that, because to be born a weak baby in Gaza means suffering a death sentence in agony."

In addition, Hasan relates, "There was a feeling of chaos, that things were much less organized than last time, that there was no authority or hierarchy. Everyone is worried about their own survival, hunger has an effect, and all kinds of groups were taking advantage of this situation in an awful way. Patients now began arriving who had been shot by [other] Palestinians in fights over food. Imagine hungry people who haven't eaten in days and have children to feed. They will do anything to get food."

The chaos Hasan describes almost cost him his life. On the way from Cairo to Rafah, the Egyptian driver asked him to deliver a bag of sweets to a Palestinian family he knew in Gaza for the Ramadan holiday. Hasan agreed and asked the driver to tell the family to look for him at the hospital. But when he arrived to collect the medical equipment at the border crossing, he discovered that it was not one bag but three huge sacks of sweets. It was certainly not a gift for a family.

He went up to one of the guards at the border, explained the situation and asked him for his advice. The guard explained to him that Egyptian and Gazan merchants were trying to take advantage of the situation to sell things at high prices – the goods he had might fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. He suggested that Hasan leave the sweets there and promised that he and his colleagues would distribute them for free to children for the holiday.

"On the way to the hospital, my phone kept ringing," Hasan recalls. "It turns out that these were the people to whom I was supposed to deliver the sweets. That night, at the hospital, about 10 people with guns suddenly appeared and demanded the candy. They said they were members of Hamas, but later it turned out that they weren't, they just wanted to scare me. It was actually a family that had seized control of a share of the black market. They told me that they knew my name was David and that I was actually an Israeli."

Hasan. "I walked around the hospital and looked, searched and asked everyone if they had seen, heard or knew anything about the Israeli hostages." Allison Joyce/AFP

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives Haaretz Netta... | Middle East (similarworlds.com)

Detroit doctor has never seen anything worse than crisis he witnessed in Gaza

Detroit doctor has never seen anything worse than crisis he saw in Gaza (freep.com)

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[rjzimmerman]

Where Seas Are Rising at Alarming Speed. (Washington Post)

One of the most rapid sea level surges on Earth is besieging the American South, forcing a reckoning for coastal communities across eight U.S. states, a Washington Post analysis has found.

At more than a dozen tidegauges spanning from Texas to North Carolina,sea levels are at least 6 inches higher than they were in 2010 — a change similar to what occurred over the previous five decades.

Scientists are documenting a barrage of impacts — ones, they say, that will confront an even larger swath of U.S. coastal communities in the coming decades — even as they try to decipher the precise causes of this recent surge.

The Gulf of Mexicohas experienced twice the global average rate of sea level rise since 2010, a Post analysis of satellite data shows. Few other places on the planet have seen similar rates of increase, such as the North Sea near the United Kingdom.

“Since 2010, it’s very abnormal and unprecedented,” said Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who has studied the changes. While it is possible the swift rate of sea level rise could eventually taper, the higher water that has already arrived in recent years is here to stay.

“It’s irreversible,” he said.

As waters rise, Louisiana’s wetlands — the state’s natural barrier against major storms — are in a state of “drowning.” Choked septic systems are failing and threatening to contaminatewaterways. Insurance companies are raising rates, limiting policies or evenbailing in some places,casting uncertainty over future home values in flood-prone areas.

Roads increasingly are falling below the highest tides, leaving drivers stuck in repeated delays, or forcing them to slog through salt water to reach homes, schools, work and places of worship. In some communities, researchers and public officials fear, rising waters could periodically cut off some people from essential services such as medical aid.

While much planning and money have gone toward blunting the impact of catastrophic hurricanes, experts say it is the accumulation of myriad smaller-scale impacts from rising water levels that is the newer, more insidious challenge — and the one that ultimately will become the most difficult to cope with.

“To me, here’s the story: We are preparing for the wrong disaster almost everywhere,” said Rob Young, a Western Carolina University professor and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines.

“These smaller changes will be a greater threat over time than the next hurricane, no question about it,” Young said.

[constelationprize]

The Kayleigh Day Lives AU - Part 3

Also known as Congratulations, Wymack, it's a boy! He is also already 20 years old and horribly traumatised

So I think that after the banquet Kayleigh goes to some ERC after party to schmooze a bit, maybe with the explicit intention of undermining the rumor of Kevin being better than Riko. Like "do you think I'd let anyone hold MY son back? *Nervous laugh*"

Smash cut to the match between Riko and Kevin

Kayleigh is halfway back to the hotel when she gets Kevin's call. He's immediately locked himself in a bathroom while Jean helps distract Riko.

Now she knows this is BAD bad for a couple reasons. For one, hands have very delicate bones, and full recoveries from severe blunt trauma injuries are hard and rare. Second, there's the fact that this confirms her suspicions that Kevin was being mistreated from behind her back. Third, she knows they won't let her take him to a hospital right now. And last, but not least, it's going to be very hard to get away with double homicide once she gets her hands on Tetsuji and Riko.

Kayleigh has to make a snap judgment if she wants to help her son, in a way that won't put either of them in more danger. She can't trust Tetsuji anymore, so she goes over him.

Now, I don't think she would have access directly to Kengo, but during her years as a Moriyama asset she has amassed enough goodwill she has a few contacts in the main branch. People who are worried about Tetsuji overeaching with his little project.

She calls them and very carefully chooses her words. She says that Riko has dealt Kevin a potential carreer-ending injury and that the best way to control that narrative is going to be playing it off as an accident and taking Kevin out of the public eye for a while, transfering him out of Edgar Allan so people focus on that drama instead of questioning the origin of his injury. She doesn't necessarily threaten going public with what she knows if they don't allow her to take him safely out of the Nest, because she isn't stupid, but it IS implied.

Kayleigh gets half an hour to take Kevin out of the hotel before she herself has to report back. Wherever he's going, she can't come with, as insurance.

That... Somewhat hinders her options.

But, well. David Wymack is in town.

Kevin has found the letter in this universe too, because Tetsuji would have it regardless, but he took Kayleigh at her word when she explained it was for the best that Wymack not know.

This is not a can of worms Kayleigh ever intended to open. But there is a saying about desperate times and desperate measures.

Which is how she ends up picking up Kevin, badly bandaging his hand, and going after the Palmetto State Foxes.

She catches up with them right as they are piling onto the bus to leave. She almost his the bus with her car. It's a mess.

It gets worse once she and Kevin get out, though.

Wymack is alarmed and confused and oh my God Kayleigh what the fuck is your badly injured son doing here.

And she says something to the likes of "First of all, that's OUR badly injured son"

There is a lot of screaming. Dan thinks she's having a stroke. Wymack is torn between confusion and rage. Kevin is going into shock, like, the medical condition. Abby is trying to weave her way to him because someone has to give that boy some actual first aid. Kayleigh's time is running out and she doesn't have time to stand here in this parking lot and justify every questionable decision she has made in the last thirty years. Tetsuji just found out about everything and starts blowing up her phone.

Andrew is crashing from his meds cycle and sleeps through the whole thing.

There is literally no time to untangle any of this, so Kayleigh just tells Wymack that Kevin will explain everything after they take him to the hospital. Preferably in South Carolina because the farther they are from Riko, the better.

No one is happy with this turn of events. It's for certain, though, that things will get a lot worse before it gets better.

On another note, Aaron just won himself like 200 dollars, and it might just be enough to ask that cute cheerleader in his class on a nice date.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Full List of Democrats Who Voted to Ban Mask Mandates - Published Oct 26, 2023

Republican Senator J.D. Vance received support from 10 Democrats as part of a successful amendment prohibiting the Department of Transportation from using any federal funds to enforce future mask mandates.

The amendment to the Senate minibus appropriations bill passed Wednesday by a 59-38 margin and prevents federal mask mandates on passenger airlines, commuter rail, rapid transit buses, and any other transportation program funded through the 2024 fiscal year.

These are the 10 Democrats who voted for the amendment: Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin); Michael Bennet (Colorado); Sherrod Brown (Ohio); Tim Kaine (Virginia); Mark Kelly (Arizona); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Joe Manchin (West Virginia); Jacky Rosen (Nevada); Jean Shaheen (New Hampshire); and Jon Tester (Montana).

Three senators—Democrats John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) and Alex Padilla (California), and Republican Tim Scott (South Carolina—did not vote. Of the three independent senators, Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) was the only one to vote in favor.

"This is a massive victory for personal freedom in this country," Vance said in a post-vote statement. "We saw countless abuses of authority throughout the COVID pandemic, and the American people were justifiably enraged by unscientific mask mandates.

"Today, the United States Senate took an emphatic step toward common sense and individual liberty. I'm proud of what we've accomplished here and look forward to continuing the fight."

"With the COVID pandemic behind us, the federal government doesn't need to be requiring masks for travel when that could hurt tourism and Nevada's economy," Rosen told Newsweek via email. "Anyone who chooses to wear a mask still has that option, but we've reached a point where a federal mask mandate is no longer necessary for travel."

In September, Vance, who represents Ohio, introduced the Freedom to Breathe Act—a bill intended to prevent the reimposition of federal mask mandates across the entire United States, in response to some businesses and colleges and universities reimposing mask mandates in the summer due to upticks in COVID-19 cases.

In September, the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio announced that all staff will be required to wear masks on the premises beginning September 25.

"This decision was made to promote the safety of our patients, families, visitors, and employees, based on evidence that masks are effective in reducing the spread of respiratory illness," the hospital said in a statement.

Read the rest and get a link to the original at the link above!

[justinssportscorner]

Katie Barnes at ESPN.com:

CLEVELAND -- South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley said Saturday that she believes transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women's sports. During a news conference a day after her No. 1 Gamecocks beat NC State in the Final Four to advance to the national championship game against Iowa, the legendary coach was asked for her opinion on the issue. "I'm of the opinion that if you're a woman, you should play," Staley said. "If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play." Hours later, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder was asked the same question. "I understand it's a topic that people are interested in," Bluder said. "But today my focus is on the game tomorrow, my players. It's an important game we have tomorrow, and that's what I want to be here to talk about. But I know it's an important issue for another time." The debate over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in accordance with their gender identity has grown heated in statehouses, courthouses, sport governing bodies and the court of public opinion over the past four years.

The NCAA first adopted a policy governing transgender athlete participation in 2010, providing a pathway to participation for transgender women and men in accordance with their gender identities. It amended its policy on Jan. 19, 2022 to be sport-specific as determined by each sport's national governing body, international federation or the 2015 Olympic standard. That policy change came amid controversy surrounding University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who was competing in women's swimming and won a national championship in the 500-yard freestyle. The NCAA currently requires transgender women wanting to compete in women's sports to submit documentation, including testosterone levels, to the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. The committee's medical review panel determines eligibility.

South Carolina Gamecocks women's college basketball coach Dawn Staley is 100% correct: trans women should be able to play in women's sports competitions (and vice-versa for trans men in men's sports). 🏳️‍⚧️

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

Days after a landmark ruling in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found medical discrimination against transgender people unconstitutional, the South Carolina Senate passed a broad gender-affirming care ban. The bill, House Bill 4624, prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender youth and also targets mental health providers. It forces teachers to out transgender students to their parents. It also includes an expansive public funding ban, prohibiting the use of public funds "directly or indirectly" for gender-affirming care at any age, potentially affecting the availability of all transgender care in the state. By doing so, South Carolina appears to be ignoring a ruling from the very court circuit in which it is located, just days after the decision was issued.

The bill states that “A physician, mental health provider, or other health care professional shall not knowingly provide gender transition procedures to a person under eighteen years of age.” The mental health provider portion of the bill was a heavy point of contention, with the ACLU of South Carolina interpreting it to cover at least some counseling for gender dysphoria. Though a later amendment was added that says it would not “impose liability on any speech protected by federal or state law,” the vagueness of the bill means that mental health providers who give out of state treatment locations to the families of transgender youth may still be targeted.

The bill also includes an extremely broad prohibition on public funding for gender-affirming care. It specifies that "public funds may not be used directly or indirectly" for such care, regardless of the recipient's age. This would eliminate Medicaid coverage, prohibit gender-affirming care under the state employee health insurance plan, and could potentially target any doctor or hospital that receives public funding. Notably, "indirectly" funding gender-affirming care could mean that any doctor providing such care might see state grants jeopardized. Such actions have already been taken against the Medical University of South Carolina, whose funding was threatened unless it ceased all transgender care in 2023. The hospital discontinued care for all transgender youth shortly thereafter. This provision, along with much of the bill, appears to come from the Family Policy Alliance’s model legislation, although it goes further than that model legislation in applying the ban to any age.

The bill seems to both directly and indirectly disregard a recent decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to which South Carolina belongs. In that decision, a Medicaid ban on transgender care in West Virginia and a public employee health care policy ban in North Carolina were deemed unconstitutional. The court determined that gender identity is a protected characteristic and that medical discrimination infringes upon the equal protection rights of transgender individuals. Similarly, it ruled that Medicaid bans contravene both the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid Act.

South Carolina shamefully decided to circumvent the 4th Circuit Court’s Kadel v. Folwell ruling by passing a bill (H4624) to ban not only gender-affirming care but also tack on a forced outing provision.

[genderqueerpositivity]

The implications of this bill for transgender teachers and students in South Carolina are profound. Teachers would be forced to change their titles to those of their assigned sex at birth. Likewise, teachers would be forced to “out” themselves as transgender if they wished to stay in compliance with the law.

Moreover, students would receive instruction portraying transgender identity as “incorrect” or “false,” severely impacting transgender students’ well-being.

When responding to the bill, a local pediatrician, Dr. Michael O’Brien, offered the bill’s sponsor his insight into the bill, stating that it is a “cruel bill designed specifically to harm trans South Carolinians” and offering to discuss the bill with him.

Representative Pace responded by telling him that it is “cruel” to affirm transgender people and that instead, he should “repent” and hope that the “lord shows [him] mercy.”

This is not the first time Representative Pace has weaponized the powers of the state against transgender people. Previously, Representative Pace announced that his caucus successfully shut down the Medical University of South Carolina’s gender clinic for trans youth.

[wolfiemcwolferson]

“I wanna get better”

Ok, this is more sad. Piarles. (I went cuckoo. sorry) CW for mental health stuff

Pierre in the midwest going to university while living at home - commuting 45 minutes to campus three days a week, driving to their research facility one day, and working on his dad's farm the other three.

Spending late nights when he can't sleep wandering through a pasture with a headlamp and his dog while he thinks about living on a coast - somewhere he can stand on a beach and feel small in a really different way - thinking about that time he was eight and his parents drove them all to the Californian coast and he knew what happiness was.

He goes to parties with his friends and he wants to feel something, but the girl he was dating for 2.5 years dumped him last year when he started anti-depressants because she couldn't get it and he can't get himself to ask out the girl in his physics class that has made it really clear that she likes him and he's like, trying really hard to make it work.

He starts his third year and his dad is asking him when he starts his practicum for his teacher's exam and Pierre doesn't know how to tell him he's been thinking about applying to grad school or that he's been seeing the therapist at university or that he's having those discount medical cards sent to his friends dorm room mailing address so he can pay cash for anti-depressants without his parents finding out, but he's making it, you know? He's making it.

And then he's sitting in the library right before his 21st birthday and he's got like 15 open tabs for colleges on the coast that offer master's degrees in biology and that's when Charles flops down in front of him, laughing and asking if he can sit with him. "Sorry if this is weird, but everywhere else is full and I just...really have to try and figure this shit out or I will fail this biology exam."

Pierre is entranced by him and obviously offers to help. Clears his throat a little and asks, "who's the professor?" and slides the textbook over to him, to highlight the important information, but he slides his computer away and Charles is laughing again. "Are you transferring to South Carolina?" before squinting. "Oh god, tell me I haven't managed to find the only other person from South Carolina?"

Pierre shakes his head. Explains he's thinking about going to grad school there and instead of him helping him with Biology, he's slowly being told about all the best places to hang out and all the spots that Charles loves and how he's really actually cold and miserable and he's been flirting with the idea that he will transfer and finally Pierre is like, "I'm so sorry, but I have to go to class, but I will help you with this. Give me your number and we can set something up." And Charles is so shameless like "God, I didn't even have to work to get you to ask me for my number." and obviously Pierre can't take it back, just blushes and laughs it off, but god. It sits heavy in his heart.

He sees Charles two days later and helps him with his biology, but he also looks at his dimples and watches the way he drags his vowels and he waits and waits and waits while he tells long and rambly stories that don't mean anything. And so when he says into the abyss of his car on his drive home that night, "I think I might be gay" and it doesn't scare him the way he thinks it will, he texts Charles and asks if he wants to go grab lunch with him - no biology homework this time.

It's a very fast and mad descent into being in love for the first time.

Pierre is so incredibly busy, but he's lying to his parents about school work and he's driving into town to spend whole days in Charles' dorm room, licking up his neck and explaining biology homework to him in great detail and learning about himself and about Charles in return and it's a bit like standing in the ocean again for the first time.

Charles understands loss and he understands that Pierre feels like he's trapped in a box and he makes him laugh and he makes him feel like he's on top of the world and they're sneaking around and it's everything young love should be.

Charles tells him he's staying for May-mester too because there's this class he needs and it's only offered in the summer and so Pierre knows they have four months together and he plans on making every single day count.

It's just that...he maybe gets so wrapped up in Charles, in thinking this was the thing missing from his life that he stops...filling his prescription and he...goes a bit wobbly in May.

Charles has class four days a week and Pierre doesn't have class at all and his dad finds out that he's been seeing someone from school and he kind of goes to the dark place and I think they have a really nasty fight the last week of May and Pierre accuses Charles of not giving him enough time and Charles is like, I can't go anywhere with you I can't go home I can't go to restaurants I can't do anything so how?

He goes to see Charles the night before his flight back to SC and Charles says, "I love you, but I think you need to...figure some stuff out."

And Pierre is...still at home. Watching Charles have the summer of his life in South Carolina before Charles posts a really vague thing at the beginning of August about being home and then he calls that night - for the first time all summer and Pierre gets really excited. Thinks he's coming back.

"I'm transferring, Pierre." Charles tells him quietly. "I just...I need to get my shit together. I was barely going to class last semester and I just...I can't be the only thing you have in your life. It's not good for either of us."

Pierre has half a dozen half finished applications and two letters of recommendation and an expired anti-depressant prescription and he decides that he can't do this. He can't be the person who has half a life because he's scared or can't get his shit together.

The next year is really really hard and it goes something like this: He tells his parents about the anti-depressants and he comes out and he tells them he wants to go to grad school and his dad is furious, but his mom holds him and cries and helps him make a list of what he needs to do. He applies to six grad programs. He takes his anti-depressants everyday and he goes to therapy and he tries really hard. He graduates with two acceptances and he has a text from Charles congratulations on graduating and it's the first contact they've had in months since Pierre unfollowed him on Instagram and it doesn't feel like it's going to kill him and he texts him back and thanks him and tells him he hopes he's happy. Charles reads it but doesn't respond. Pierre goes on a couple of dates with a guy he met online that summer, but he tells him he's going to grad school in the fall and so they remain friends and that's really it.

The fic ends with Pierre moving into his new apartment right off campus, meeting his roommates in person for the first time and they ask if he wants to go out that night as a welcome dinner and he's like, SURE.

They all walk into this place with garage sides that roll up and foamy beer and it's just so...Pierre can almost smell the ocean from here and he feels alive - just like he did when he was eight and just like he did when he fell in love with Charles and just like he did when his therapist hugged him during their last session and told him she was proud of him.

He's being introduced to one of his roommate's friends from his grad program and Pierre hears him - Charles.

He turns around and he's there. Talking to a group of people, laughing and talking too loudly like he's prone to doing, but he turns immediately when Pierre says his name. "Charles."

His eyes go wide and Pierre thinks he's pissed but then he's throwing himself across the group of people and Pierre almost tips backwards catching him and Charles is laughing. "What are you doing here? What are you doing here? Oh my god. Are you starting school here?"

And Pierre laughs, telling him that he is. he's starting his grad program next week - is Charles on vacation or?

"I transferred in. I finished my associate's at the junior college back home and I - this was my number one pick." Charles laughs and pulls his phone out. "I think I'm gonna need a lot of biology help this semester."

Pierre puts his number in. "Why the hell are you taking biology? Don't tell me you're trying to -"

"Pierre." Charles laughs, "It's a line. I'm never taking another biology class in my life. I'm just getting your number."

"Oh," PIerre smiles before handing the phone back.

"Listen, I do have to get back to my friends because they will lock me out of the apartment tonight, but I will text you okay? And we'll get together and talk, yeah? I know it's shit of me to say, but I've thought about you like, every single day and this is...kismet or something."

Pierre nods and accepts the hug and when he turns back to his roommates, he shrugs and says, "It's my ex." and they all laugh.

He doesn't stay his ex, and Pierre goes to therapy and takes his anti-depressants and he and Charles sit on the beach for hours and they talk about everything and nothing and Pierre reminds himself that he always wants to get better.

[offender42085]

Post 0570

Riley McDermott, South Carolina inmate 367945, born 1990, incarceration intake in 2016, at age 26; scheduled for release February 2030

Felony DUI resulting in Death

A former police officer, charged with lying, could have derailed or at least seriously hurt the prosecution of a man charged with killing three young people in a DUI wreck, but instead, Riley McDermott decided not to try to take advantage of that situation and pleaded guilty in an Anderson County courtroom in 2016.

As part of a plea deal, McDermott pleaded guilty to three counts of felony DUI with a death and two counts of felony DUI with great bodily injury, but an additional charge of felony DUI with a great bodily injury was dropped.

McDermott, 26, has insisted since the beginning that he would not try to have bond hearings or move to have critical evidence thrown out, even if that meant skipping a chance to shorten what became an 18-year prison sentence, his attorney Druanne White said.

McDermott was driving drunk, shortly after midnight on Nov. 8, 2014, when his pickup truck — going 73 in a 35 zone — crossed the centerline and plowed into another car, said assistant 10th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Lauren Price.

The wreck killed 22-year-old Corey Austin Simmonds, 17-year-old Amber Hope Perkins and 20-year-old Jessica Ann Roberts.

The wreck happened at Boulevard and Williamston Road, near a residence hall at Anderson University where McDermott was an assistant baseball coach.

The cars collided with the force of a bomb blast, said attorney Steve Krause, who represents Perkins’ younger sister, Cheyenne Perkins, who was 11 at the time of the wreck.

Cheyenne was trapped in the car, counted by officials as a fourth fatality until Deputy Anderson County Coroner Don McCown felt a faint sign of life. Also a trained paramedic, McCown gave Cheyenne Perkins an emergency tracheotomy in the back of the car and is credited with saving her life.

Circuit Court Judge Cordell Maddox said it is highly unusual for people accused of crimes to meet with their victims before the case is resolved.

"That’s a first for me in 15 years on the bench," Maddox said.

McDermott’s mom, Laurie, told the judge she knows about a lifetime of kindness her son has given to neighborhood children, elderly family members, classmates and to her when she had cancer.

“I know he would do anything in his power to undo that night,” she said.

McDermott’s best friend, his pastor and his former girlfriend also spoke to his compassion and love for others. His head coach at Anderson University, Jim Miller, said he had charged McDermott with recruiting not for talent, which anyone could do, but to recruit for character.

There was little doubt, family members of several of the victims said in court, that McDermott was, until that night, a good kid.

But so too were the people he killed, they said.

Hanging over the hearing like an elephant, Maddox said, were the actions of an Anderson Police Department officer, who was not named in court but was identified based on the charges mentioned by prosecutor, the judge and other attorneys for family members.

The officer, Gene Frank, was charged earlier this month with misconduct in office related to his work on the case and was fired from the Clemson Police Department, where he had been working after leaving the Anderson Police Department.

Frank is accused of telling his supervisors and prosecutors that he had tried to get a judge to get a warrant for McDermott’s blood after the wreck, according to prosecutors. Phone records showed he did not call the judge and instead made a decision to authorize the blood withdrawal at AnMed Health Medical Center citing exigent circumstances, Price said.

Maddox said he felt compelled to make the unusual step of commending the police department, in the court record, for being honest after discovering what happened.

“It needs to be said on the record that your department has acted in the way we all want police departments to act,” Maddox said. “You didn’t give up and stop, you didn’t hide any facts once this case went off the tracks.”

The judge said if McDermott had tried to get evidence withheld, Price would have been scrambling at a trial, which wouldn’t have happened for years, to get a conviction.

He told McDermott that his life could still be worthwhile if he were to try to stop others from driving drunk.

McDermott was given a chance to speak to the victims.

He turned away from the judge, toward the crowd.

“From the bottom of my heart I’m sorry,” he said. “The good thing about being in jail is I don’t have a mirror so I don’t have to look at myself in the face.”

While several family members had expressed forgiveness or wished peace on McDermott, Charlie Harris said he wanted a longer sentence.

Harris is raising his two-year-old granddaughter since his daughter Jessica Roberts’ death.

After the sentencing he said there aren’t enough laws to protect victims of DUI fatalities.

“He still gets to see his family,” Harris said. “His family can see him, can hug him when he’s out. I can’t see Jessica, and my granddaughter won’t know her mother.”

3y

[youre-only-gay-once]

i hope david hiott gets hit and pulverized into transphobic viscera by a speeding jacked up f150 while trying to cross main street

[lboogie1906]

Mayor William H. Herrington (August 15, 1950) the first African American Mayor of Lawrenceville, Virginia was born in Hartsville, South Carolina to Henry Herrington, a transportation worker from Darlington County, and Carrie Boyd Herrington, a housekeeper from Chester County, South Carolina.

He graduated from Butler High School, Hartsville, where he played baseball, basketball, and football. He was a member of the South Carolina 1968 Triple-A Championship Basketball Team. He enrolled in Saint Paul’s College, where he pledged the Epsilon Gamma Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. He married Brenda Reese (1971), a project manager from Kenbridge, Virginia. He was the captain of the tennis team. He received a BA in History.

He earned his JD from Howard University Law School. He graduated from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. Herrington became a member of the DC Bar Association and the Virginia Bar Association.

He practiced law in both public and private arenas. He served as a trial attorney for OSHA and Lee and Harvey and as a senior trial attorney for Brown, Brown, and Brown. He was named vice president for institutional advancement and director of admissions at Saint Paul’s College.

In 2014, he became the mayor of Lawrenceville. He supported early childhood education and established the “Mayor’s Pre-K Book Club,” which earned the Virginia Municipal League “Stairway to Success” statewide award. He advocated for children and education by encouraging students to participate in the VML “If I Were Mayor” Essay Contest. He revived the local farmers market, established a community wellness committee, and brought multiple health-related events to the community. He was instrumental in bringing the first Remote Area Medical clinic to the region, which provides medical services to residents of impoverished, isolated, and underserved areas.

The Lawrenceville Town Council presented him with a resolution for successfully serving the people of Lawrenceville through outstanding leadership and creative abilities for promoting the town. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #omegapsiphi

[yr-obedt-cicero]

Do you have any info on John's French ancestry? His grand or great grandparents were French and I am fascinated by what influence they could have had on him/his relationship with being French, especially during his """diplomacy""" trip

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that Laurens had any major influence by his heritage in general.

Laurens was French Huguenot on his father's side. The immigration of French Huguenots moving to Charleston was actually quite common and predated Laurens's ancestors. A colony of Huguenots arrived in South Carolina, Charleston, having been sent out by the English Government to enltivate oil, wine and silk. But the larger immigration came in 1685-6, when French Protestants flocked to the State in great numbers. They formed four settlements, one in the City of Charleston, and the other three in the country, where they erected Churches in each settlement. [x]

There appears to be no ground for the late 20th century claim that the family descended from André du Laurens, the physician of both Henry IV. and his queen, Marie de' Medici, Chancellor of the University of Montpellier, the author of extensive medical works and belonging to the lower nobility. Henry Laurens knew nothing of such a connection, and never supported it. But while it is also highly improbable, there is also to consider that someone like Henry - descended far too down the line to properly recollect such an account - would have known or not known of it with any sincerity. The theory mostly stems from John Laurens's similarly named great-grandfather, André Laurens, who left France only seventy-three years after the death of André du Laurens. But hypothetically, he would also have been quite likely to keep his name Du Laurens, as that of the physician, like all the other descents had. And there would be no reason to doubt he would have cherished this relation from one of the most distinguished savants of his time.

It's hard to trace the Laurenses with the little record surviving of them, the name was common in the west and southeast of France and was borne by many families having no known connection at all, so much so, that many years before John Laurens's family left France there were numbers of Laurenses in New York, sometimes with the same Christian names as the ones from JL's folks. But it is known André was native of the Catholic France—And his family hailed from Annonay, Vivaris Province. André's father, Jean Laurent (Laurens), was a merchant in Rochelle, and died before 1681, leaving his widow, Elizabeth Menigaut (Manigault) and their son André. They resided in the parish of Saint Sauveur. Among the closest and oldest friends of the Laurenses was the family of Daniel Lucas, also a merchant of Rochelle, who owned a small farm nearby Périgny. Like other Huguenots, the Laurenses left France for the hope of religious freedom—In the wake of Louis XIV's efforts to stamp out Protestantism, when the pressure of persecution was becoming heavier; André, his mother, and Daniel alongside his wife, Jeanne Marchand, with their four children, fled to England in 1682. Jeanne Lucas soon died in her new home, but the friendship between the families grew into a closer bond when her daughter, Marie Lucas, and André were married in the French church in Threadneedle Street, February 22, 1688. [x]

The Laurenses tried their fortunes in Ireland, and then later, Marie and André settled first in New Jersey, then in New York City. [x] Where many of their kin had immigrated to priorly, some of the family fled from the persecution in France to Holland. The new-comers in New York were not among strangers, for the numerous colonies whose interests centered around the French church were a sympathetic community, living very much its own distinct life, and there are several reasons for supposing that they had Laurens relatives in the town. In the Collections Huguenot Society of America there is plenty of correspondence from André and his family to others, and even an account of a mother and son in 1700 as witnesses at the marriage of a Jean Laurens and Marie Benereau.

It was there on the 30th of March, 1697, Marie gave birth to the third of their five children, Jean Samuel Laurens (Possible namesake of their new friend, Samuel Grasset). While in New York, the Laurenses befriended another family of Huguenot refugees, the Grassets, who fled from France about the same time as the Laurenses and Lucases. Jean - age nineteen - married Esther Grasset - age fifteen or sixteen - shortly before André decided to uproot his family again. Finally, they sailed and moved to Carolina around 1715, where many Huguenots had already settled. Charleston served as the provincial capital as well as the economic heart of the low country.

André died soonly after arriving in Charleston. David Duncan Wallace describes him as; “as a man of piety, shrewdness and force. At the time when the humble foundations were being laid for the great fortunes and family careers which the next two generations were to witness, he did his part in giving his children their start in the race.” [x] His grandson, Henry Laurens, later recalled that he; “had Saved So much Money as enabled him” to provide his five children “with Such portions as put them above low dependance.” [x]

But after André's death, little cultural preservation is noticable in the family. Henry says “Some of them retained the French pride of Family, & were content to die poor. My Father [Jean S. Laurens] was of different Sentiments, he learned a Trade, & by great Industry acquired an Estate with a good Character & Reestablished the Name of his Family.” [x] After the family moved to Charleston, Jean chose to anglicanize his name, and he became known as John, whom John Laurens was named after. Both Jean and his wife were born Americans, ‘the French pride of family’ died out in a generation or two with little resemblance left. Instead to keep his family afloat; like most Huguenots, Jean immersed himself in the South Carolinaian traditions and culture. He learned the trade of saddler at the bench and followed it with such industry as to make himself a much-respected citizen. Over time he prospered in his trade and invested in real estate. He also joined the established Anglican church, where he served as warden of St. Philip’s Parish, and he owned at least five slaves. Yet he remained ambivalent toward the institution that formed the basis of South Carolina's prosperity. On one occasion, he made a cryptic prediction that slavery would eventually collapse. [x]

It was said that Jean; “gave his children the best education which (Charleston) afforded.” [x] Jean seems to have had solid expectations for Henry, as his education was directed into merchantry. Henry journeyed overseas to receive further training, in 1744 Jean sent Henry to London to work in the counting house of the respected merchant James Crokatt. In 1747 Henry finished his apprenticeship and returned to South Carolina. He didn't learn Latin or Greek, and barely knew French himself—As he only seems to have had fluently spoken a few expressions, which might indicate that as a man he picked up a small amount of French. But later he requested a friend to translate his letter of 1774 to the Poictiers Laurences into French, stating that he could not write in the language. [x]

And it seems that Henry wasn't interested in reconnecting his family to their French heritage either, as JL did not learn French at a very young age. He only eventually took up the language at age thirteen, on December 28, 1767, which was basic schooling for the wealthy class at the time period;

My Jack has made an Amazing progress in French from the 28th December when he enter'd upon that branch, I say so because those who are good Judges & can't flatter tell me so, & I know a little of the Matter too.

Source — Henry Laurens to John Moultrie, [January 28, 1768]

Laurens's conduct in France was also quite grounded on his identity as an American Patriot (A headstrong one) and cultural unfamiliarity that he broke their etiquette. So, it is quite apparent JL's generation of the family were not tightly knit to their heritage. As it was commonly accustomed - similarly to this day - that immigrants convert their traditions and cultural aspects to match their new country of residence, especially those who traveled to the colonies.

Sources:

John Laurens and the American Revolution, by Gregory D. Massey

Huguenot Church in Charleston, by Margaret Middleton Rivers Eastman, Richard Donohoe & Maurice Eugenie Horne Thompson, with Robert P. Stockton

The Life of Henry Laurens: With a Sketch of the Life of Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens, by David Duncan Wallace

Collections of the Huguenot Society of America, Volume 1