Creep of the Week: Gov. Tate Reeves

Gov. Tate Reeves and his fellow Republicans want to help the children of Mississippi.

This is great news! There are so many choices! So many ways to better the lives of the state’s children. None of these issues have easy solutions, but I commend Mississippi for trying.

Perhaps they’ll start by addressing how the state’s high poverty rate is harming kids. Or they’ll take a good hard look at Mississippi’s incarceration rates and ask themselves why they are locking up so many of their citizens. Or maybe they’re going to make it easier and more affordable for their citizens to get health insurance.

Haha, just kidding. It’s an anti-trans bathroom bill trafficking on the myth that transgender people are sex pests or worse.

According to NBC News, Gov. Reeves signed a bill into law “that would bar transgender people from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities in the state’s public schools. The legislation, titled the Securing Areas for Females Effectively and Responsibly Act, or the ‘SAFER Act,’ mandates that the state’s schools have single-sex restrooms, changing rooms and dormitories.”

Jesus, that’s a clunky acronym. I propose they replace this bill with “Letting All Transgender People Live In Peace,” or the LATPLIP Act. Just rolls off the tongue.

“The signing of the SAFER Act follows the Biden-Harris administration’s announcement on April 19 of new Title IX protections, including the right of transgender and nonbinary students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities,” reports The Advocate. “The updated rules explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, aligning with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.”

According to PBS News, the SAFER Act “declares that people are either male or 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.’”

The government’s out here literally outlawing a person’s “sense of self.”

Gov. Tate is super proud of this hateful bullshit.

“The far-left radicals aren’t going to like it, but in Mississippi, we’re going to protect women’s spaces,” a blue check marked Tate writes on X. “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.”

Ah, yes, we all remember it well. When the election was FINALLY certified on Jan. 6, 2021, the nation’s first transgender person appeared as if out of thin air. And they’ve been rapidly multiplying ever since, and are positioned to take over the country, one women’s space at a time.

“There’s no doubt that the left will continue to come up with more kooky ideas that harm biological women,” Tate continues.

How nice of Tate to care about “biological women.” Surely this concern will be reflected in the state’s abortion laws, right?

Oh, wait. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, “On June 27, 2022, the Mississippi Attorney General certified the state’s trigger ban, which bans all abortions except to save the life of the pregnant person, or in cases of rape or incest that have been reported to law enforcement.”

Not a lot of care for women in that law. Not a care in the world.

Tate promises that “Mississippi will continue to push back on” the left’s “kooky ideas,” such as bodily autonomy and basic personal freedom. “That’s because we have to — protecting girls and women from the left’s dangerous agenda is just too important to ignore,” Tate continues. “You have my word that as long as I’m governor, our state will do everything in its power to keep Mississippi’s daughters safe.”

But not the trans daughters, to be clear, something Tate did not have to say out loud.

“This bill does nothing but attempt to push us further apart at the expense of LGBTQ+ people, who deserve the freedom to be and to use bathrooms and locker rooms without the prying eyes of politicians peering over the stall,” Rob Hill, Mississippi’s state director for the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “Shame on the governor and the MAGA agenda of hate.”

Shame, indeed. Especially when you look at the size of the transgender population in Mississippi.

“According to research done by UCLA’s Williams Institute, there are an estimated 9,600 transgender adults in Mississippi, comprising 0.41% of the population,” Mississippi Today reports. “The study estimates there are 2,400 trans children between the ages of 13 and 18 in Mississippi, comprising 1.2% of that population.”And the full force of the state’s power is being used to directly harm and shun this small group of people. And it’s all based on lies used to dehumanize. It’s disgraceful.