The GOP couldn’t get its act together before a key legislative deadline.
Two bills deemed transphobic in the Mississippi legislature failed to advance after Republican legislators couldn’t reconcile their differences before a Monday cutoff, as per the Associated Press. One bill aimed to mandate that transgender individuals use facilities in public establishments corresponding to the gender assigned on their birth certificates. The other sought to affirm the binary notion of sex, stipulating that sex is determined solely at birth and consists of either male or female genders.
The Republican factions in the state House and Senate had previously approved distinct iterations of both bills. However, they failed to reach a consensus on a unified version of each bill to present to Gov. Tate Reeves (R). Reeves had previously endorsed laws prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in competitive sports teams corresponding to their gender identities and banning transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming healthcare.
State Rep. Joey Hood (R) argued that the bills, now defunct, were crucial “to ensure boys utilize boys’ bathrooms and girls utilize girls’ bathrooms.” The proposed bathroom legislation would have empowered individuals to file lawsuits against transgender individuals using bathrooms or changing areas aligned with their gender identity. However, the bill included exemptions for children under 12, emergency medical personnel, custodial staff, janitors, and individuals requiring assistance, as per the AP. Stay engaged with your community.
State Representative Zakiya Summers (D), who is Black, drew parallels between the bathroom bill and discriminatory legislation from the Jim Crow era, which imposed restrictions on which bathrooms Black people were permitted to use.
Summers remarked, “It brought to mind the struggles my ancestors faced when they were barred from using certain bathrooms and wouldn’t even consider dipping a toe in a pool.”
The second bill, now defunct, titled the “Mississippi Women’s Bill of Rights,” aimed to define gendered terms such as “woman,” “man,” “mother,” “father,” “female,” “male,” and “sex” based on the sex assigned by doctors at birth. This legislation would have hindered transgender individuals from altering the gender designation on their official government documents.
In March, when Reeves signed the prohibition on gender-affirming care into law, he was accompanied at the signing event by anti-trans filmmaker and Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh, along with activists from Alliance Defending Freedom and Madison County Moms for Liberty, two organizations known for their opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
A statement from The Spectrum Center, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group in Hattiesburg, characterized Reeves’s approval of the bill as “an act of violence,” asserting that he and the legislators advocating for it are deliberately disregarding the specific requirements of transgender youth, obstructing their access to medical treatment, and conveying a stigmatizing and exclusionary message.
Professional medical organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association, among others, have unequivocally supported gender-affirming care, deeming it safe, effective, and vital for the overall health of transgender individuals. Research indicates that gender-affirming care significantly enhances the mental well-being of transgender youth.
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