Efforts to curtail the rights of transgender Mississippians died this week alongside two bills, including one that would have banned trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities and one that would have enshrined a binary definition of gender in state law.
The demise of the two bills came as House and Senate lawmakers failed to agree on compromise versions of each by an April 29 deadline on Monday. With the legislative session winding down this week, lawmakers have been focused on other issues, like approving a new school funding formula, expanding Medicaid and state budget bills.
The bathroom bill, known as the “SAFER Act,” would have also restricted trans people’s use of public student housing and locker rooms. Its author, Sen. Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, told Magnolia Tribune on Tuesday that he was “not sure why the House didn’t sign the conference report,” referring to the compromise bill.
A majority in the House previously voted for the bill. “We’re going to make sure boys go to boys’ bathrooms, girls go to girls’ bathrooms,” the Associated Press reported Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, saying on April 10.
Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, introduced the other anti-trans bill, known as the “Women’s Bill of Rights.” It would have codified sex as being defined at birth, narrowing pathways for trans people to have their gender legally recognized, and said that “there are only two sexes, and every individual is either male or female.” For years, anti-trans organizations nationwide have promoted bills to the state legislature designed to curtail trans rights under the guise of protecting women’s rights.
The efforts to pass anti-trans legislation this year has drawn sharp rebukes from some Democrats in the Legislature, the Associated Press reported in April.
“They used to run on race, colors, and all of that,” Rep. Willie Bailey, D-Greenville, said on April 10. “Then they started running against people on abortion. Now they’ve got to have an issue on transgender—it’s just silly.”
“It reminded me of what my ancestors had to deal with at a time when they couldn’t go in the bathroom, either, and they wouldn’t dare stick their toe in a pool,” she said on April 10.
Another anti-trans bill that would have required teachers to out trans students to their parents died without a vote in March.
Other anti-trans bills have succeeded in Mississippi in recent years. In 2021, the Legislature passed and Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law banning transgender K-12 and college students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identities. In 2023, the governor signed the “REAP Act” into law, banning standard gender-affirming care for transgender minors, including puberty blockers.
