“This important piece of legislation will ensure that girls in Mississippi have a fair and level playing field in public schools,” Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said at an autograph event on Thursday.
The bill states that women’s and women’s sports will not be “open to male students”, but the law does not explain how the gender of students will be determined for the purposes of the law, or how the challenges to any individual’s participation will be resolved. .
“Send a clear message to my daughters, and to all the daughters of Mississippi, that it is worth fighting for your rights,” he said, although trans athletes in the state are also daughters and precisely those whose rights are being sought. 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 impulse is terrible”.
David called the law “a solution to a problem”, saying lawmakers in Mississippi did not “provide any examples of Missisippi transgender athletes playing with the system to gain a competitive advantage because there is none.”
Chase Strangio, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union for trans 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 pushed to restrict trans students from using bathrooms that match their gender identities.
“Just as it has never been about bathrooms, this project is not about sports. It is about getting trans people out of public life,” he said in a statement.
South Dakota close to enact similar law
A bill banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports in South Dakota was brought to the table by Republican governor Kristi Noem, who said earlier this week that she is “excited to sign” the legislation.
Noem said at a news conference on Thursday that the South Dakota project “is not about transgender people – it is about justice for girls in women’s sports”.
Noem said the legislation would be based on a person’s birth certificate and that he did not want to “weigh in on what each school district can decide and what the judicial system process will be like”.
Despite his comments earlier this week, Noem said on Thursday that he is still considering whether the proposed law would be an appropriate government function.
“We are still looking at the project – preparing to make decisions about it,” she said.
“You are using your power to exclude children and make them feel less, and that is nothing to be proud of,” the group said in a tweet.