by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News May 14, 2024
Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves on Monday signed legislation into law that requires individuals to use the public school restrooms, changing rooms, and dormitories that correspond with their gender as “determined solely by birth.”
The legislation, titled the Securing Areas for Females Effectively and Responsibly Act, or the “SAFER Act,” mandates that the state’s public schools have single-sex restrooms, changing rooms and dormitories. Its text defines someone’s sex as “‘determined solely by a birth,’ without regard to the fluidity of how someone acts or feels.”
The law takes effect immediately.
“It’s mind blowing that this is what Joe Biden’s America has come to,” Reeves wrote in a post on X. “Having to pass common sense policies that protect women’s spaces was unimaginable just a few years ago. But here we are… we have to pass a law to protect women in bathrooms, sororities, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shower rooms, and more.”
In 2021, Reeves signed a law that limits trans students from competing in sports that correspond with their gender identities. Mississippi also enacted a law that bars trans minors from accessing certain transition-related medical procedures.
Mississippi is one of more than 20 Republican-led states challenging Title IX rules the Education Department issued last month. Among several provisions, the rules explicitly prohibit barring trans students from using bathrooms and changing facilities that correspond with their gender identities at schools that receive federal funding.