Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the party is always right.
On par with the shame of slavery and Jim Crow: transgender students banned from women's sports
Transgender athletes in Mississippi's public schools and colleges will no longer be allowed to compete in women's sports after the state's Republican governor on Thursday signed the first statewide anti-trans law of 2021.
SB 2536 is the first anti-trans legislation to be approved by a governor this year, with similar bills percolating in statehouses across the country and one such bill currently before South Dakota's Republican governor. Advocates of the bills have argued that trans women have a physical advantage over cisgender women in sports, while critics contend that they're discriminatory, including the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ rights group.
"This important piece of legislation will ensure that young girls in Mississippi have a fair, level playing field in public schools", Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a signing event on Thursday.
The law, which prohibits transgender athletes from competing on women's sports teams in the state's high schools and universities, passed the Mississippi House last week by a vote of 81-28. The state's Senate approved the measure last month by a vote of 34-9.
The bill states that women's and girls' sports will not be "open to students of the male sex", but the law does not explain how students' sex will be determined for the purposes of the law, or how challenges to any individual's participation will be resolved.
Transgender athletes in Mississippi's public schools and colleges will no longer be allowed to compete in women's sports after the state's Republican governor on Thursday signed the first statewide anti-trans law of 2021.
