Only one Women’s Rights Bill defines the sexes and then protects girls’ private spaces

State Sen. Josh Harkins says the SAFER Act offers much-needed sex-based definitions whereas taking the subsequent step to truly defend ladies’s protected areas.

What’s a lady? Ought to males be allowed to make use of ladies’s locker rooms, bogs, rape and abuse shelters, prisons, dormitories, sorority homes, and different traditionally female-only areas? 

In current polling carried out by Impartial Ladies’s Voice of registered voters in Mississippi, a outstanding 95% thought it was essential that Mississippi legislation defend non-public areas for ladies. One other 87% believed Mississippi legislation must outline sex-based phrases similar to lady, feminine, man, and male primarily based on organic intercourse. 

There are good Mississippi payments on the market that present these much-needed sex-based definitions— I help them utterly as a primary step and sincerely thank my pals behind them. However the definition-only payments don’t defend ladies’s protected areas. 

The SAFER Act, SB 2753, sponsored by Jeremy England and myself, offers these virtually similar definitions after which takes the subsequent step to truly defend ladies’s protected areas. The 95% polling from Republicans, Independents, and Democrats throughout our state I hope additional strengthens my fellow lawmakers’ resolve to combat for each steps on behalf of ladies and ladies in our state. As well as, the Mississippi Federation of Republican Ladies (MFRW) is just one of many teams who’ve come out in favor of the SAFER Act over a definitions-only invoice. Governor Tate Reeves, the daddy of three daughters, powerfully campaigned on preserving males and boys out of lady’s areas. 

In 2021, Mississippi handed the Equity Act, with MFRW behind it, stopping males from competing in sports activities towards women and girls. That was a wanted step in the best path by those that paved the best way; however language that will have protected single-sex areas was not within the remaining model of this invoice. As every year passes, Mississippi ladies and ladies’ protected areas stay unprotected. 

Do we actually want to attend one other 12 months to guard ladies’s protected areas and danger one other Mississippi lady or lady being sexually assaulted for us to lastly say no to males overtaking ladies’s areas? 

Many of the media and radical activists, sadly, will insist that after all males ought to be allowed in ladies’s non-public areas. Or they’ll act as if this isn’t a major difficulty.

However we all know it’s. We all know this isn’t proper nor honest to the women and girls who’re pressured to undress in entrance of totally intact nude males. It’s not honest to the ladies throughout the nation who’ve been raped in ladies’-only areas by males claiming to be ladies. It’s not honest to ladies prisoners who’ve been housed with males (who current as ladies) and had been then raped. It’s not honest to the numerous women and girls who’ve been videotaped or photographed by males whereas undressing or utilizing the toilet. 

These aren’t simply fears. Or worries about what might occur. These are precise headlines: 

A Mississippi man brutally attacked and raped a lady in a rest room stall on the Gulfport mall. He hid within the rest room ready on the girl. 

A 38-year-old restaurant employee adopted a 12-year-old into Ridgeland Mississippi restaurant rest room to get her quantity. He later raped her in his truck.

A mom alleged her particular wants daughter was raped in a Calloway Excessive College ladies’ rest room.

A gender-fluid boy sexually assaulted a younger lady within the ladies’ rest room of a Loudoun County, Virginia faculty. The boy was transferred to a different faculty the place he allegedly raped one other feminine within the ladies’ rest room. 

In help of an Alabama invoice defending lady’s protected areas, the sponsor of the invoice acknowledged that ladies had been getting raped in class bogs throughout the state, together with a 14-year-old lady and 7 different comparable instances in only one Alabama county alone. 

A Los Angeles man dressed as a lady entered a Macy’s division retailer rest room and videotaped ladies underneath rest room stalls. 

Man posing as transgender lady raped feminine prisoner at Rikers, lawsuit says.

A convicted youngster intercourse abuser dressed as a lady entered the ladies’s locker room at a water park in Oregon; he was arrested and charged with illegal contact with a toddler and unlawfully being in a location the place youngsters congregate. 

These are just some of the various tales that share the identical theme: ladies being violated of their protected areas. We should defend the privateness and security of ladies and ladies in historic single-sex areas, similar to bogs, locker rooms, and altering rooms, as so many of those heart-breaking tales present. 

Along with defending ladies from sexual assault, this invoice will defend faculty districts and different state establishments from lawsuits. A faculty district in Virginia is already being sued for $30 million for failing to guard a younger lady from being raped by a “gender fluid” male who was allowed to make use of the ladies’ restroom. This invoice will defend colleges from litigation, saving treasured assets for academics within the classroom.

The SAFER Act, SB 2753, handed out of Senate Judiciary A Committee after which handed a full Senate vote. The sister invoice within the Home, HB 1428, handed out of the Home Public Property Committee however didn’t be introduced up in Judiciary A Committee, thus dying within the Home. The Senate model, SB 2753, now returns to the Home for one more likelihood at a Home Judiciary A Committee vote. 

I ask that all of us come collectively now to not solely outline women and men for functions of Mississippi legislation however to additionally really hold identical intercourse areas separate. Let’s make 2024 the 12 months Mississippi ladies and ladies are lastly protected.