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A new law in Mississippi requires individuals to use restrooms and housing at public education institutions that correspond to their gender assigned at birth.
Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves announced in an X post Monday that he has signed the legislation.
People will only be allowed to use housing or bathrooms based on their “sex ‘determined solely by a birth,’ without regard to the fluidity of how someone acts or feels,” the bill states.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi said in a statement to CNN that the law targets “transgender people for discrimination.”
The “Securing Areas for Females Effectively and Responsibly Act,” or SAFER Act, states that “females and males should be provided areas, including restrooms, changing facilities and single-sex educational housing spaces, for their exclusive use, respective to their sex, in order to maintain privacy and safety.”
Those who violate the policy could be sued by private parties, but public education institutions and state agencies would be protected from liability, according to the legislation.
Reeves said in a post on X that the legislation protects “girls and women from the left’s dangerous agenda.”
Rob Hill, the Mississippi state director for the Human Rights Campaign, said the new law is “nothing but attempt to push us further apart at the expense of LGBTQ+ people, who deserve the freedom to be and to use bathrooms and locker rooms without the prying eyes of politicians peering over the stall.”
In its statement, the ACLU of Mississippi said laws that “require transgender people to use the wrong restroom or locker room do nothing to prevent assault. That’s why more than 250 leading sexual assault and domestic violence advocates oppose laws like the SAFER Act.”
“It is already illegal to enter a restroom or locker room for the purpose of harming someone or invading someone’s privacy. All this law does is target transgender people for discrimination,” the statement continued. “Transgender people are part of our community, our families, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods and they, just like everyone else, need to be able to safely access restrooms.”
Reeves signed legislation last year banning health care professionals from providing many forms of gender-affirming care to transgender minors, including hormone treatments and surgical procedures.
Major medical associations agree that such care is appropriate for gender dysphoria, the psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align.
