Skip to content

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
      • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued abortion isn’t an economic issue. But is that true?

        Chabeli Carrazana · May 4
      • Pregnant people are at 'greater risk' in states hit hard by wildfire smoke, air pollution, new report shows

        Jessica Kutz · April 20
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
      • U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to elect more Republican women into office

        Barbara Rodriguez · August 13
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Jessica Cisneros takes on the last anti-abortion U.S. House Democrat

        Amanda Becker · February 25
      • Meet J. Michelle Childs, South Carolina judge and possible Supreme Court contender

        Candice Norwood · February 18
      • ‘The bench is loaded’: A record number of Latinas are running for governor

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 11
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: The governor’s races we’re watching in 2022

        Barbara Rodriguez · May 3
      • The 19th Explains: What to know about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing

        Candice Norwood, Terri Rupar · March 21
      • The 19th Explains: Colleges are dropping the SAT in admissions. That’s a good thing for most girls.

        Nadra Nittle · March 3
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
      • Girls are being socialized to lose political ambition — and it starts younger than we realized

        Barbara Rodriguez · September 23
      • Kathy Hochul’s rise in New York spotlights the barriers to women becoming governors

        Barbara Rodriguez · August 23
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • Woman alleges that an assisted living facility denied her admission because she is transgender

        Sara Luterman · November 8
      • LGBTQ+ seniors fear having to go back in closet for the care they need

        Sara Luterman · October 12
      • The pandemic continues to strain nursing homes. What happens if a lot of them close?

        Mariel Padilla · September 9
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Florida’s redistricting fight continues. The head of the state League of Women Voters talks about what’s at stake.

        Barbara Rodriguez · April 19
      • Women have been sounding the alarm ahead of Texas’ first-in-the-nation primary

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 28
      • LGBTQ+ people of color are at risk from rising voter restrictions as federal protections falter in the Senate, advocates say

        Orion Rummler · January 19

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Elections 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Donate to get our member newsletter

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

A group of trans youth walk in front of the South Dakota Capitol.
Trans youth lobby their senators in Pierre, South Dakota in 2020. (Photo by Kate Sosin)

LGBTQ+

First anti-LGBTQ+ bills of the year are close to becoming law

Mississippi and South Dakota have passed anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Advocates say 2021 has been an unprecedented campaign against transgender rights in particular.

Kate Sosin

LGBTQ+ reporter

Kate Sosin portrait

Published

2021-03-04 13:11
1:11
March 4, 2021
pm

Updated

2021-03-11 12:46:38.000000

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Update: On Thursday, March 11, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed his state’s anti-transgender sports bill into law, making the state the first in 2021 to pass such a bill into law. 

In a statement to media, Chase Strangio, deputy director for trans justice at the ACLU, called on the Biden administration to enforce civil rights law protecting transgender people. 

“Other states should know that passing a bill like this will come with real consequences,” Strangio said. “To the trans youth in Mississippi who have been needlessly and cruelly targeted: The government cannot and will not be able to stop you from being who you are. we will never stop fighting for you.”

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

The organization has vowed to sue on behalf of young trans people barred from sports who come forward.

Two anti-LGBTQ+ bills — Mississippi’s transgender youth sports ban and South Dakota’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act — are both heading to the states’ governors for their signatures.

The two bills are the first in a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ measures to advance out of state legislatures in what advocates say has been an unprecedented campaign against transgender rights in particular.

“Anti-equality forces are attacking our families,” Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David said on a call with reporters Thursday. “They’re attacking our children. They’re attacking our dignity, and they’re attacking our existence.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 70 anti-trans bills are pending in state legislatures, with new bills still being introduced. The organization estimates that 2021 will eclipse 2020 as the year with the most anti-LGBTQ+ legislation ever filed. 

Mississippi Senate Bill 2536 bars “males” from competing on interscholastic or intramural athletic teams. The bill states that a student’s sex is to be determined by their reproductive anatomy, testosterone levels and “analysis of the student’s genetic makeup,” which a student can establish with a doctor’s note. Its aim is to keep transgender girls, many of whom have yet to reach puberty, from playing on sports teams. 

Last month, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves criticized President Joe Biden’s LGBTQ+ executive order, which enforced the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling that prohibited employment discrimination against queer workers and extended sex protections in law to include LGBTQ+ kids in sports, as a “radical social experiment.”  Reeves, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request to comment from The 19th. 

Mississippi resident Katy Binstead said she worries about her daughter, after her principal told her she couldn’t play basketball with other middle schoolers.

“My daughter isn’t comfortable playing with the boys because she’s not a boy, and she never has been a boy,” Binstead said.  “And they’re saying she can’t play girls’ basketball, based on a gender assigned at birth.” 

But for Binstead, the issues go beyond what team her daughter plays on. “There’s so many mental health issues at play here,” she said. “A lot of kids that are transgender, if they’re not affirmed, the mental health risk of them dying by suicide is quite high.” 

At least two bills — in Alabama and Minnesota — would criminalize and even incarcerate transgender children for playing on athletic teams inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth. 

However, state legislatures aren’t just passing athletic bills. South Dakota has passed a Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA), a type of anti-LGBTQ+ religious exemption law not seen since former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence inked one into law in 2015. The bills mirror a 1993 federal law that has been used to justify discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and women, advocates say.  At least 36 states have RFRAs pending in state legislatures. 

South Dakota Senate Bill 124 was intended to allow churches to stay open during the pandemic. However, the bill contains four lines that echo RFRA language. South Dakota has been used as the testing ground for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation since federal marriage equality became the law of the land in 2015, in part because its chambers are Republican-controlled. 
It’s unclear if South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will sign the bill into law. The Associated Press reported last month that the Republican said she welcomed transgender people in South Dakota but declined to comment on the transgender legislation moving through her state. 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Donate to get our member newsletter

Up Next

A group of supporters gathers to to honor Roxsana Hernandez and Johana Medina as part of Trans Immigrant Day.

LGBTQ+

Former detainees call on Biden to release transgender people from ICE custody

“It is clear to all of us that ICE will never be a safe place for our communities,” a letter sent to Biden said.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Subscribe to the Newsletter
  • Attend an Event
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram