(LifeSiteNews) — The governors of two states have signed into law bills aimed at keeping trans-identifying males out of private spaces where women and girls are most vulnerable.
On Thursday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) signed into law HB 188, known as the “Dignity and Safety for Incarcerated Women Act,” a bill that protects women housed in correctional institutions by prohibiting male inmates from invading their changing rooms, sleeping quarters, and restrooms.
“States have a duty to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of women,” said Sarah Beth Nolan, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom’s (ADF) Center for Public Policy.
“Letting men intrude into women’s spaces is an invasion of privacy, a threat to their safety, and a denial of the real biological differences between the two sexes,” noted Nolan. “HB 188 safeguards against these harms to women in Mississippi correctional facilities.”
Meanwhile, further north on the same day, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden (R) signed HB 1259, a bill that similarly protects women and girls by prohibiting men from entering into women’s spaces – such as changing rooms, sleeping quarters, and restrooms – in public schools and public buildings.
Gov. Rhoden said in a statement that the bill “protects South Dakota values,” and promotes “freedom from the ‘woke’ agenda like what has happened in too many other places.”
“South Dakota is a place where commonsense values remain common, and these bills reinforce that fact,” said Rhoden about HB 1259 and a pair of other bills regarding school libraries and fathers’ rights.
The bill also allows women and girls who are troubled by the presence of gender-confused males in private spaces reserved for females to seek declaratory and injunctive relief against the school or state if reasonable precautions hadn’t been taken by officials to prevent the trans-identifying male from using that facility.
“Women and girls should not be forced to sacrifice their privacy and safety to activists pushing gender ideology. Allowing men to invade girls’ spaces – including locker rooms, sleeping areas, or restrooms – rips away girls’ spaces,” said ADF’s Nolan in a separate statement praising the measure. “HB 1259 ensures that girls’ spaces in public schools and public buildings are not open to men and prioritizes privacy and safety for every South Dakota girl.”
