Mississippi’s Republican-led Legislature made a last-ditch effort Thursday to resurrect a law regulating transgender people’s use of bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorms in public schools.
Lawmakers pushed the idea through the House and Senate in the final days of their four-month session, after talks between the chambers broke down on an earlier proposal. Republicans reported receiving a flood of messages encouraging them to revive the bill.
“This probably, to a lot of our constituents and to a lot of people in this chamber, is probably the most important bill that we brought up,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, a Republican, stated.
All public educational institutions would be required to provide single-sex restrooms, changing areas, and dorms.
People would only be allowed to enter locations that corresponded to their sex assigned at birth, regardless of their looks or any processes they underwent to confirm their gender identity. Those who violate the policy could be sued, but schools, colleges, and universities would be safe from liability.
Democrats warned the bill would endanger transgender individuals. They also lambasted Republicans for devoting time to the topic when other legislative goals remained unfulfilled.
“It just baffles me that we have things we can do to improve the state of Mississippi for all people, for all people, but we get so pumped on something that’s national politics,” Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III, a Democrat stated. “It is not my job to criticize how people live their lives.”
Republicans said they were advocating for female family members on college campuses, pointing to several Republican women in red as they watched from the Senate gallery.
Anja Baker, a Mississippi Federation of Republican Women member from the Jackson suburb of Rankin County, was among them. Baker, who works with social service providers, expressed fear that women might be squeezed out of venues they rely on.
Advocacy groups wrote her and other Republican women late Wednesday, pushing them to visit the Capitol on Thursday. That happened after an initial legislation mandating single-sex spaces failed, resulting in a strained back-and-forth among top parliamentarians.
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Joey Hood, Chairman of the House Judiciary A Committee and a Republican, said the Senate compelled the House to accept a weaker proposal. The bill would allow people to sue, but they would not be allowed to seek compensatory damages.
As a result, Hood and other House members stated that the measure they ultimately enacted would most likely fail to dissuade people from entering locations that do not correspond to their assigned gender at birth.
Hood expressed confidence that the Legislature will introduce legislation imposing harsher penalties in 2025.
Another plan failed this year to deny transgender individuals legal status by enshrining the idea that “there are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female.”
In 2021, Republican Governor Tate Reeves passed laws prohibiting transgender athletes from competing on girls’ or women’s sports teams. Last year, he passed legislation prohibiting anyone under the age of 18 from receiving gender-affirming hormones or surgery.
The Mississippi measures were among numerous legislation under consideration in state legislatures throughout the country as Republicans attempt to limit transgender people’s access to gender-affirming services, bathrooms, and sports, among other things.
