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Trans kids, supportive parents and activists from across Mississippi gathered on the south-facing steps of the Capitol on Wednesday to rally against a bill that would ban gender-affirming medical care for trans minors. 

More than 50 people attended the protest against House Bill 1125, called the “Regulate Experimental Procedures for Adolescents Act,” holding colorful signs and wearing the pink, blue and white trans pride flags draped on their shoulders. 

Some trans kids who attended, like Theodore Milnor, a 15-year-old freshman at Tougaloo Early College High School, had excused absences from school. Milnor’s counselor gave him one condition: To write a report on the protest and present it to the whole school for kids who couldn’t go. 

Before the protest started, Milnor turned to a family friend, Tifani Keith, who’d come with him because his parents couldn’t get off work. He said he was anxious. 

“We’re in a very safe and loving place right now,” Keith told him as they walked up the Capitol steps. 

Inside the building, conservative lawmakers have fast-tracked HB 1125 without consulting trans kids or providers of gender-affirming care, an evidence-based form of treatment that is supported by every major medical association in the U.S. If the bill passes, providers could lose their license if they continue to treat trans kids, and anyone who “aids and abets” gender-affirming care for trans kids could be sued for damages for up to 30 years, in a provision modeled off a Texas anti-abortion bill. 

“It is infantilizing, unfair, discriminatory and frankly unconstitutional,” said McKenna Raney-Gray, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi’s LGBTQ Justice Project. “This is the kind of thing the ACLU was designed to fight against.” 

The bill has yet to pass the Senate but it is backed by a powerful coalition of lawmakers, including Gov. Tate Reeves who has indicated he’ll sign it. 

“The fact is that we set age restrictions on driving a car and on getting a tattoo,” Reeves said during his State of the State address. “We don’t let 11-year-olds enter an R-rated movie alone, yet some would have us believe that we should push permanent, body-altering surgeries on them at such a young age.” 

Other lawmakers have likened gender-affirming care to child abuse and called the bill a measure to protect kids. But at the rally, speakers said the bill will do the exact opposite: by denying trans kids the opportunity to transition, they say HB 1125 will increase the risk of suicide among a population that is already disproportionately vulnerable to mental illness. Nationally, trans youth attempt suicide at a rate more than four times their cisgender peers due to social stigma and discrimination. Research has repeatedly shown that gender-affirming care significantly boosts the chances that trans kids will live to see adulthood. 

READ MORE: What to know about gender-affirming care in Mississippi

Some of the trans kids who attended, like Milnor, have not started gender-affirming care but still view the bill as an attack on their rights. 

“This bill is not about health care in my point of view,” he said. “I feel it is more about ostracizing trans people.” 

Gender-affirming care is already difficult to obtain in Mississippi. There is likely only one clinic in the state that offers gender-affirming care, with parental consent, to 16- and 17-year-old trans teenagers. The number of kids in the state who have prescriptions to hormones or puberty blockers — treatment that is reversible — could likely fit in a whole classroom, according to in-state providers of gender-affirming care. 

In speeches, House lawmakers like Rep. Nick Bain, R-Corinth, a co-sponsor of the bill, could not name a single instance of trans kids undergoing surgery in Mississippi. There is no clinic in Mississippi that offers gender-confirmation surgery to trans kids, according to providers. 

“Believe me, the gentleman from Corinth did not come up with this idea one afternoon in the duck hunt,” said Clint Faulkner, a father who drove up from Sumrall with his child to attend the rally. “He got a call from a special interest group. … That’s what bothers me.” 

Multiple speakers asked, rhetorically, why lawmakers are prioritizing HB 1125 instead of other health care issues in Mississippi, like the rural hospital crisis or the worsening rate of maternal mortality, one of the highest in America.

“My question, as always, is this,” said Lance Presley, a reverend at Broadmeadow United Methodist Church in Jackson. “Why is it that every time folks in this building start talking about protecting our children, it’s never about making sure that our children in this state have adequate nutrition, it’s never about making sure that the kids in this state live past childhood?” 

“Why is it always – when they talk about protecting children – why is it always about hurting the kids who are already hurting most,” he continued. 

Ashley Moore, the mother of a trans child, echoed Presley’s point. 

“What are we doing?” she said. “We rank last in so many things, and we’re trying to take away our children’s rights? Gender-affirming care is evidence-based. Everybody seems to be overlooking that.” 

Moore said that she was so scared to speak out against the bill she was shaking, but that, “I am even more terrified of what will happen to my child and my family if this is passed.” 

Leviathan Myers-Rowell, a 16-year-old high school junior, talked about what it’s like to be a trans kid in Mississippi, an experience he said lawmakers don’t understand. He quoted a comment that Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, made in a Senate committee claiming that parents are forcing gender-affirming care on trans kids. 

“This is horrifying to me because it just isn’t true,” Myers-Rowell said. “There are no parents out there who actually want to choose the gender assignment of their children … the reality is being trans is hard, and nobody chooses this.” 

After speeches finished, protesters marched two blocks to the Governor’s Mansion, waving flags and chanting “protect trans youth.”

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Starkville natives A.J. Brown and Willie Gay both went off on football’s biggest stage, but it was Gay’s Chiefs that pulled out the 38-35 thriller. The Cleveland boys discuss the game, including the “controversial” call that helped decide the game.

Stream all episodes here.

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FEBRUARY 15, 1848

Sarah Roberts, a 5-year-old Black American, entered an all-white school in Boston — only to be turned away. She wound up entering four more white schools, and each time she was shown the door. And so she found herself walking from home, passing five all-white schools on the way to an all-black school the city of Boston was forcing her to attend. 

This angered her father, Benjamin, one of the nation’s first Black American printers, and he sued the city. Robert Morris, one of the nation’s first Black lawyers, took up the case. 

“Any child unlawfully excluded from public school shall recover damages therefore against the city or town by which such public instruction is supported,” Morris wrote. 

He and co-counsel Charles Sumner argued that the Constitution of Massachusetts held all are equal before the law, regardless of race, and that the laws creating public schools made no distinctions. 

Sumner wrote, “Prejudice is the child of ignorance … sure to prevail where people do not know each other.” 

In 1850, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the racial segregation of public schools. The attorneys brought the issue to state lawmakers. In 1855, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts banned segregated schools — the first law barring segregated schools in the U.S.

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In Mississippi legislative parlance, there are rare issues that can “take your picture off the wall” at the Capitol.

This refers to issues about which voters care so deeply that if a lawmaker doesn’t do right by them, they will oust him or her in the next election. Their photo will no longer be in the framed array of the current Legislature.

Monkeying with state retirees’ benefits, massive tax increases — there are only a few singular issues considered to have such statewide, grassroots gravitas. And in general lawmakers either treat them like a third rail on a subway, or else snap-to when it comes to a vote.

Is restoring voters’ rights to ballot initiative — sidestepping the Legislature and putting an issue directly to a statewide vote — one of those take-your-picture-down issues?

Some elected leaders and candidates believe so. And some recent public polling and social media outcry would appear to back them up. Some citizens groups have tried to organize members to call and write lawmakers about it. Should the Legislature fail again to restore this right, it will likely be a campaign issue in many statewide and legislative races this year.

READ MORE: Restoring Mississippi ballot initiative process survives legislative deadline

A recent poll by Tulchin Research for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund reported 65% of Mississippi voters surveyed support restoring ballot initiative rights, and only 14% opposed. Support crossed party, age, race and other demographic lines.

There’s no doubt many Mississippians across the spectrum were hopping mad when the state Supreme Court stripped voters of this right in 2021. This was with a ruling on medical marijuana, an instance where voters had taken matters in hand after lawmakers dallied for years on an issue. Legislative leaders were quick back then with vows they would restore this right to voters, fix the legal glitches that prompted the high court to rule it invalid.

But given the way they’ve fiddle-faddled on restoring the right for going on two years now, it would appear some legislative leaders don’t see it as top-of-mind for voters, or don’t believe voters are paying a lot of attention to particulars.

READ MORE: Mississippi Supreme Court strikes down ballot initiative process

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate Accountability Chairman, John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, in particular, haven’t exactly tripped over themselves in effort to restore voter’s right to a ballot initiative.

Polk’s initial draft of a measure this session essentially would have given voters ballot initiative rights in name only. It would have given the Legislature power to veto or amend citizens’ initiatives before they go before voters, sort of missing the whole point of a ballot initiative. It also would have required, on top of forcing initiative sponsors to collect more than double the signatures previously required to get something on the ballot, that sponsors get at least 10 signatures each from the state’s more than 300 municipalities. This would be a near impossible task.

Even after making some concessions, Senate Bill 2638 would still require about 240,000 voter signatures to put something on the ballot compared to about 107,000 under the state’s previous initiative process. The Senate’s demands for requiring a large number of signatures killed reinstatement last year when the House wouldn’t go along.

Polk told his colleagues if he had his way, he’d require even more signatures for voters to bypass the Legislature, and he voted against the measure even though he was the one presenting it for a Senate vote.

Many political observers viewed Hosemann routing the measure to Polk’s committee again this year — instead of the Constitution or Elections committees — as a sign he’s not all that into restoring ballot initiative rights.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, before last week’s Senate vote, appeared to warn his colleagues about only paying lip service to restoring the initiative.

“We’re about to find out soon where people really are, when we see if we get a legitimate, workable ballot initiative process,” Blount said. “… We need to be straight with people that we mean it.”

There are reasonable arguments for and against voter ballot initiative.

Voter initiative, a creation of the early 20th Century progressive movement, gave citizens the ability to overcome the influence of big money interests on legislatures, and can still serve as a valuable backstop. There are 25 states with some form of voter initiative or referendum (the power of voters to kill a law).

But Mississippi’s form of government, just like the nation’s, is a representative democratic republic, not a direct democracy where major policy or spending is decided by a majority vote of the masses. Our founding fathers were just as afraid of the “excesses of democracy” as they were of despotic kings, and they believed democracy should be tempered through legislative representation, protective of minority rights, and checked by the judicial and executive branches.

Polk warned last week that out-of-state interests can spend large amounts of money and harness social media campaigns to co-opt the ballot initiative process and force policy that is not truly grassroots.

The issue, as it did last year, will likely come down to House-Senate negotiations on a final version of restoration late in the legislative session.

And given its treatment thus far on High Street, reinstatement of voters’ right to take matters into their own hands is far from certain.

But any lawmakers involved in killing or watering down such rights are taking a risk. And voters could take their pictures off the Capitol walls.

READ MORE: 5 reasons lawmakers might not want to restore the ballot initiative

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It’s an election year — political love is in the air.

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Mississippi is leading the country in syphilis cases, resulting in a tragic uptick of newborns risking death from the disease across the state. 

Mississippi has had a more than 900% increase in babies born with syphilis – a sexually transmitted disease that is also passed to an infant during pregnancy – in six years ending in 2021. Syphilis can cause miscarriages and death. Surviving children born with the disease can have major malformations and life-long complications.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported preliminary data that 2,677 babies nationwide born with congenital syphilis in 2021. It was the highest number reported in one year since 1994. Case counts have been rising steadily since 2013. 

“It’s absolutely alarming and shocking,” said former State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, “and it’s totally preventable.”

Dobbs now leads the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Population Health. He and other leading health care officials in the state are trying to warn parents and colleagues about the growing problem.

“Years past, it was a rare and uncommon event (at Forrest General Hospital), where we had a couple babies per year with congenital syphilis,” said Dr. Anita Henderson, a pediatrician at The Pediatric Clinic in Hattiesburg. “Now, we are seeing babies on a monthly, sometimes weekly basis, who test positive from mothers who received partial treatment, or no treatment.”

Syphilis is treated effectively with penicillin. Despite a simple cure, Mississippians are continuing to contract and pass along the illness with dire consequences.

In 2016, eight babies in Mississippi were born and hospitalized with syphilis. In 2021, that number hit 106, according to data Dobbs shared based on health department and hospital discharge numbers. While syphilis cases in infants have gone up nationwide, Mississippi’s rate of increase is nearly five times the national average. 

“The numbers are bad,” said Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, a professor of pediatric infectious disease and microbiology at UMMC, “and they’re just going to get worse.” 

Mississippi is tied with Nevada for the leading rate of overall cases of syphilis per population of 100,000.

Most states require syphilis screenings in pregnancy by law, but Mississippi is one of six that doesn’t. Without mandatory screenings, some mothers are shocked to learn they even have the disease. They may not have symptoms, and by the time they do find out, it’s sometimes too late. 

State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said in a statement the health department is exploring the possibility of a regulation requiring syphilis testing during pregnancy.

“The messaging isn’t always clear,” Hobbs said, “but syphilis can kill your baby and it can kill you.”

Henderson said it largely comes down to a lack of sexually transmitted disease education. Sometimes those who have syphilis don’t realize a single dose of treatment isn’t enough to eradicate the infection and they need multiple doses. Maybe they were treated, but their partner never was, and they got reinfected. 

“I do think they are surprised to learn syphilis can cause problems with the baby,” Henderson said. “Syphilis is easily treated … so it is not something people think about a cause of death in children in 2023. But we have had several babies die and many other suffering long term issues.” 

Dobbs said poorer women – usually women of color – especially struggle to access prenatal health care. Nearly 71% of the babies born and hospitalized with syphilis in Mississippi in 2021 were Black, according to data provided by Dobbs. It’s another example of the state’s alarming health care disparities in treatment of the Black population in Mississippi. 

Transportation is a major barrier. OB-GYN offices can be a long haul from rural portions of the state, and county health clinics are dealing with major nursing and staff shortages. County health clinics may offer free syphilis screenings, but nine locations have closed in recent years, and more have reduced their hours.

“We don’t have a comprehensive support network where women are accessing prenatal care,” Dobbs said.

He sees that as the largest barrier. Another comes with how difficult it is for expecting mothers and parents to access health care in general, especially under Medicaid. That’s why doctors across Mississippi are pushing for the state’s Medicaid coverage to include presumption of eligibility during pregnancies. A bill in the House that would have sped up access to care for mothers at lower income thresholds during pregnancy already died this session. 

It’s not uncommon for an expecting mother to wait more than a month before their public health insurance is approved after they become aware of their pregnancy. That public health insurance covers about 65% of the state’s pregnancies. 

Doctors offices often won’t see pregnant patients until they have their coverage card in hand – which could mean missing out on penicillin treatments in the first trimester, when outcomes would be the most favorable.

Penicillin treatments, though relatively simple, are pricey. Doctors’ offices often don’t want to take on that expense without the assurance they will be paid back.

“Women of a reproductive age need to have regular health care to have proper family resources,” Dobb said. “Women should be empowered to time births consistent with their desires, with the counseling of physicians.” 

But in Mississippi that access often isn’t easy to come by. Dobbs said the syphilis outbreak is a reflection on the depletion of Department of Health resources.

“If your health department doesn’t have anybody in them, you can’t get tested or treated,” Dobbs said. “Those are the bread-and-butter pieces of syphilis control. Over the past two decades, public health has deteriorated remarkably.”

Now, an increasing number of children in Mississippi are living with the consequences. 

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House leaders quietly let die a bill that would have stripped some of the authority of the board that oversees the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System.

The bill died Feb. 9, a deadline day, when House Appropriations Chair John Read, R-Gautier, did not call it up for consideration.

The action, or lack of action, came one day after House Speaker Philip Gunn received a letter from PERS Executive Director Ray Higgins saying the retirement system board would likely vote in an upcoming meeting to delay increasing the employer contribution rate.

The board had voted by a 7-3 margin in December 2022 to increase the rate paid by state agencies, school districts and local governments from 17.4% of an employees paycheck to 22.4%.

The board’s December decision had caused consternation with legislators and local governmental entities because of the additional cost of the rate increase.

READ MORE: Lawmakers ponder stripping state retirement system authority after board votes to raise rates

Higgins wrote to Gunn he believed the board in an upcoming meeting would ratify his suggestion to postpone the rate increase from October 2023 to July 2024.

“This change will provide more time for planning while remaining consistent with actuarial recommendations and acting in the best interest of the membership to ensure the plan is properly funded long term,” Higgins wrote to Gunn. “We will also discuss the potential and cost of phasing in the rate increase.”

Higgins recently told members of the Senate Finance Committee the rate increase was needed to ensure the long-term viability of the system. The Public Employees Retirement System currently has more than 300,000 members either working currently or in the past in state or local governments .

Under state law, increasing the rate state and local governments pay into the system is “the only lever” the PERS Board has to address funding shortfalls. The House bill would have given the Legislature the final say on rate increases.

The action of the board to increase the rate by 5% to 22.04% would have cost state and local governmental entities, including school districts and higher education entities, $345 million annually, including $265 million for state agencies and education entities.

In the letter, Higgins said the board also would provide recommendations to the Legislature on how to deal with some of the funding issues, such as changing the benefits for new employees. Higgins had told a Senate committee recently changing the benefits for new employees would help long-term, but would not provide any immediate relief.

The system’s current full-funding ratio is about 61%, meaning it has the assets to pay the benefits of 61% of all the people in the system, ranging from the newest hires to those already retired. Theoretically, it is recommended that retirement systems have a funding ratio of about 80%.

Higgins said the system is stressed by the fact that additional benefits were added for employers in the late 1990s and early 2000s without a method to pay for those benefits.

In addition, the current governmental workforce is shrinking while the number of retirees in the system is growing. Higgins said during the past 10 years the governmental workforce is down by about 10%, while the number of retirees has increased by more than 25%.

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FEBRUARY 14, 1879

Blanche Kelso Bruce became the first Black American to preside over the U.S. Senate. He was also the first Black American to serve a full term in the Senate and later the first Black American to win any votes at a major party’s nominating convention. 

After escaping from slavery during the Civil War, he attempted to enlist in the Union Army. When he was turned down, he began teaching, eventually organizing Missouri’s first school for Black children in Hannibal. After making his way down the Mississippi River, he decided to enter politics, rising through the ranks of Republican leaders, elected sheriff of Bolivar County, then the county superintendent of education. He turned the Bolivar County school system into one of the best in the state, becoming a well-known figure across the state. 

In 1874, the Mississippi Legislature chose Bruce to fill the governor’s vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. After Mississippi’s violent 1875 election, Bruce championed a bill to investigate the political conditions there. The bill passed the Senate, but the House, controlled by Democrats, did nothing. He pushed for the desegregation of the U.S. Army, citing what had already happened in the U.S. Navy. 

In 1880, he railed against the treatment of Native Americans. “Our Indian policy and administration seem to me to have been inspired and controlled by stern selfishness,” he said. 

He introduced legislation to assist destitute Black farmers in Kansas. Although the bill died in committee, it led to the distribution of duty–free British cotton clothing to impoverished Kansas communities. 

When the Mississippi Legislature, now controlled by Democrats, gathered to select a new senator in January 1880, Bruce didn’t bother. Lawmakers chose one of Mississippi’s “redeemers” of Reconstruction, White Democrat James Z. George, to replace him. 

Bruce went on to serve as register of the U.S. Treasury and died of diabetes complications in 1898. In 2001, the Senate wing of the Capitol unveiled a portrait of Bruce, based on a Matthew Brady photograph. The statue of George, however, continues to represent the state of Mississippi, along with Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

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