The Mississippi state Senate passed a bill Thursday that would ban athletes who are biological boys from competing in girl’s or women’s sports in the state’s schools and universities.
Mississippi Republican state Sen. Angela Hill, the bill’s sponsor, said her law was introduced in response to questions from coaches, layers, and parents.
“I’ve had numerous coaches across the state call me and believe that they feel there’s a need for a policy in Mississippi because they are beginning to have some concerns of having to deal with this,” Sen. Hill said, according to the Associated Press.
The Mississippi bill still needs to be approved by the state’s House of Representatives before heading to the governor’s desk. But Gov. Tate Reeves hinted that he may sign the bill when he tweeted his respect for girls’ sports in the wake of President Joe Biden’s release of an executive order demanding that biological boys be allowed to play in girls’ sports.
Reeves said he was “disappointed” in Biden’s executive order:
Reeves’s tweet of disappointment came on the heels of the executive order that Biden signed on his first day in office that would withhold federal education funds from states that ban transgender “girls” from playing school sports among the biological girls.
Mississippi now joins a growing group of states that are considering or are in the process of enacting such bans into law setting the stage for a showdown between the states and the federal government on transgender athletes.
Other states considering bans include Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, North and South Dakota, and Tennessee.
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