On Wednesday, Mississippi's Republican-controlled House voted in favor of a measure that would ensure males and females can only use public bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their biological sex.
The bill, which now goes back to the Republican-led Senate, says people are either male or female "as observed or clinically verified at birth" and must use the corresponding facilities. It also requires that public buildings have restrooms or changing areas designated for men only or women only, or single-person spaces that may be used by anyone.
It would allow a person to sue another who uses a restroom or changing area that does not match his or her sex at birth.
But Democrats have accused conservatives of marginalizing transgender people to score points with voters, and as AFN has noted, Representative Zakiya Summers (D) of Jackson compared the effort to the restrictions black people faced during the Jim Crow era.
"It reminded me of what my ancestors had to deal with at a time when they couldn't go in the bathroom, either, and they wouldn't dare stick their toe in a pool," she said.
Terris Todd, a former Trump White House Education Department appointee who now serves as an ambassador for the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, calls that a ridiculous comparison.
"To equate this with Jim Crow, I think it's a total disgrace to those who've actually lived through that time," he responds. "Unfortunately, what they tend to forget is that it was southern Democrats that actually pushed those Jim Crow laws. That's what's so ironic about it. If you're going to equate it to race and Jim Crow, let's not forget who actually was leading the charge of those Jim Crow laws."
As for the bill itself, Todd says the bill is right on the money.
"I have three daughters myself. There's no way on God's green earth I'm going to be OK with a grown man who can shave his armpits and legs and put a dress on and say he's a woman going into my daughter's restroom," he tells AFN. "There's absolutely no way I would tolerate that, and most black Americans are there as well."
The Mississippi House and Senate have passed different versions of a "Mississippi Women's Bill of Rights," which defines the terms woman, man, mother, father, female, male, and sex in ways that support the biological reality that sex is defined at birth.
The two chambers would need to agree on a single version before the bill could go to Republican Governor Tate Reeves (R).
