Legislators in Mississippi have passed various bills that limit transgender people’s ability to legally determine, where to use the restroom, how to change their clothes for sporting events, and how to share a room with specific people at a college.
House Bill 585, one of those bills, would pass a law allowing linear stereotyped people to compel transgender people to not share their identities with them in prisons or college dormitories regardless of whether they identify or have undergone sex change.
Rep. Gene Newman, R-Pearl, who introduced HB 585 on March 7 said, “A woman may not have the ignominy of having a man housed with her or be allowed to remain put in with them.” Students have complained to us that they are being forced to live with a guy because the guy is a trans woman.
Senate Bill 2753, also known as the Safer Act, and House Bill 1607, dubbed the Mississippi Women’s Bill of Rights, both proposed legal gender laws that do legitimately connect male and female trans identities, and ostensibly remove the right to recognize trans identity in Mississippi. Additionally, SB 2753 may forbid transgender people from using restricted rooms and other gender-specific settings that matched their sexual preference.
The second chamber saw a sizable majority of passage for all three costs.
A transsexual person is someone who has a gender that is not commonly linked to the sex they were born to have. According to Wise Voter, a data and statistics site, it has reported that about 0.45% of the country’s 2.95 million people identify as transgender, or about 13,000 individuals. This figure may be skewed because some transgender people avoid being identified because of their prospective discrimination by refusing to disclose their preferred personality.
Although the University of Mississippi’s cover department website claims that UM does not base cover projects on factors like race, sexual orientation, or gender identity, the University of Mississippi Public Relations Department did not respond to various requests for an appointment to discuss the school’s cover policies.
In the same way, Mississippi State University does not strictly enforce written laws requiring transgender people to reside in homes that reflect their gender.
Five House Democrats, including Bryant Clark of Lexington, Daryl Porter of Summit, and Jackson Reps. Zakiya Summers and Chris Bell, all questioned what the purpose was in giving trans people the right to identify with their chosen gender. HB 1607 was the only proposed law to face significant vocal opposition.
“Why are you doing this bill”? Clark asked. We are aware that there is more than just male and female in this state and throughout the nation, not just what you were born with.
Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, who gave the bill to House members, only responded by saying that the bill’s original purpose is to establish that both genders will be legally recognized as they are when they are born and that gender cannot be proven by what is displayed on birth certificates.
What we are saying is that what you are born with is who you are, Hood said.
Democrats in the House of Representatives are n’t the only ones opposing the bills, however.
The bills enforcing her rights or those that would force her into a prison with men, according to senior journalism student Leia Davis, a trans woman, would not only be a failure from the state, but they would also put her in harm’s way.
Because I’m no longer a man, Davis said, “It would absolutely be a threat to my safety.” Being housed with men would put me in danger of sexual assault, or other forms of assault because I am a woman. So ostensibly, the bill is meant to protect cisgendered women, but inevitably, it will put transgender women in harm and transgender men as well.”
However, Republican lawmakers in the House aren’t just trying to stop transgender people from using those spaces. SB 2753 would go one step further by stating that if these people were to break the new law, they could be sued or tried for violating that person’s privacy while sharing that space. That bill passed the Senate, 40-12.
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“This is meant to protect the privacy of males and females,” SB 2753 sponsor and Finance Committee Chair Sen. Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, said.
HB 1607, which passed the House 82-30, would not allow for any form of discrimination against trans people who use gender-assigned spaces in public spaces.
The state’s only LGBTQ and feminist bookstore, Violet Valley Bookstore, is owned by the state’s only LGBTQ and feminism-focused owner, Jaime Harker, director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi. Harker, who is an authorized Ole Miss representative, did not speak to the Clarion Ledger.
“This targeting of trans people makes an already vulnerable population less safe, and it doesn’t make women safer,” Harker said. What is risky about this legislation is that it could cause more hate crimes and bullying in the larger community.
Legislators will have until midnight on April 2 to submit these bills to Republican Tate Reeves for final consideration. In the past, she signed legislation to forbid minors from playing in opposing sex sports and from receiving gender-changing treatments.
For the Clarion Ledger, Grant McLaughlin covers state government. He can be reached at [email protected] or 972-571-2335.
This article first appeared on the Mississippi Clarion Ledger when bills to limit transgender identity move forward.
