“This important legislation will ensure that young girls in Mississippi have a fair, equal playing field in public schools,” Mississippi Government Tate Reeves said Thursday.
The bill states that women’s and girls ‘sports are not’ open to students of the male sex ‘, but the law does not state how students’ sex will be determined for the purposes of the law, or how challenges will be for the individual’s participation. be not. be solved.
“It sends a clear message to my daughters and all the daughters of Mississippi that their rights are worth fighting for,” he said, despite the fact that trans women in the state are also daughters and exactly those whose rights is. is targeted by the new law.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that “Reeves’ eagerness to become the face of the latest anti-transgender push is appalling.”
David calls the law “a solution to a problem” and says Mississippi lawmakers have not “given examples of Mississippi transmission athletes playing the system for a competitive advantage because there are none.” ‘
Chase Strangio, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union for Transgender Justice with the group’s LGBTQ and HIV project, compared the issue to the debate over so-called bathroom bills a few years ago, when Republican lawmakers across the country insisted trans students of using the bathrooms that match their gender identities.
“Just as it was never about toilets, this bill is not about sports. It is about pushing trans people out of public life,” he said in a statement.
South Dakota nearing enactment of similar legislation
A bill that similarly bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports in South Dakota has reached Republican Gov. Kristi Noem’s desk, who said earlier this week that she was ‘excited to sign the legislation’ .
Noem said during a news conference on Thursday that South Dakota’s bill “is not about transgender – it’s about girls ‘justice in girls’ sports.”
Name said that the legislation would be based on a person’s birth certificate and that she did not ‘want to weigh in on what each school district may decide and what the process of the legal system will be.’
Despite her comments earlier this week, Noem said on Thursday that she was still evaluating whether the proposed law would be an appropriate role of the government.
“We are still investigating the bill – getting ready to make decisions on it,” she said.
“You use your power to exclude children and make them feel less, and it’s nothing to be proud of,” the group said in a tweet.