New Mississippi law defines biological sex, bars men from women’s bathrooms

On May 13, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law to stop transgender-identifying individuals from using restrooms and other private spaces that do not align with their actual biological sex in public colleges and universities.

Senate Bill 2753, or the Securing Areas for Females Effectively and Responsibly (SAFER) Act, states that “[f]emales and males should be provided areas, including restrooms, changing facilities and single-sex educational housing spaces, for their exclusive use, respective to their sex, in order to maintain privacy and safety.”

[RELATED: Mississippi House passes bill that would require students be given ‘option’ to only dorm with same sex]

It defines biological sex as “the biological indication of male and female as observed or clinically verified at birth, without regard to a person’s psychological, chosen, or subjective experience, feelings, actions, or sense of self,” and notes it is “objective and fixed.”

The legislation text says it “simply treats equally those of the same and opposite biological sex ‘determined solely by a birth,’ without regard to the fluidity of how someone acts or feels.”

The SAFER Act mandates that Mississippi’s institutions of higher education should have, “at a minimum,” either a “restroom designated for exclusive use by females and a restroom designated for exclusive use by males,” or a “single-sex or family-use restroom.”

The legislation also extends this protection to changing rooms, gives students the “right to be housed in a single-sex educational housing space with persons of the same sex,” and requires sororities and fraternities to “[maintain their] facilities as single sex only.”

The law lists certain exceptions to its mandates, allowing entry into spaces reserved for the opposite sex “[t]o assist or chaperon a child under the age of twelve . . . or a person with a disability,” “[f]or law enforcement, fire protection or response, or other public safety purposes,” or “[f]or the purpose of rendering emergency medical assistance or to intervene in any other emergency situation,” among other exceptions. 

SB 2753 also stipulates that “[a] person may assert a violation of this act as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding,” and that “[a]ny person under eighteen (18) years of age may bring an action at any time to assert a violation of this act through a parent or next friend and may bring an action in their own name upon reaching the age of eighteen (18) years of age.”

[RELATED: Number of ‘trans,’ ‘nonbinary’ students in UC surges after schools embrace gender insanity]

A spokesperson from Gov. Reeves’s office shared with Campus Reform a comment from the governor that was also posted previously on X: “The far-left radicals aren’t going to like it . . . but in Mississippi, we’re going to protect women’s spaces. It’s mind blowing that this is what Joe Biden’s America has come to. Having to pass common sense policies that protect women’s spaces was unimaginable just a few years ago. But here we are . . . we have to pass a law to protect women in bathrooms, sororities, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shower rooms, and more.”

“SB2753 is a win for girls and women across our state, and I was proud to sign it into law,” the statement continued.