This proposed law would ban incarcerated trans people from correcting ID documents

Mississippi lawmakers are pushing a bill that would make it more difficult for incarcerated trans people to access ID documents that match their lived gender.

House Bill 1099, also known as the “Real You Act of 2022,” would ban trans people from petitioning to change their name or gender marker while in prison. Trans inmates would be unable to request amendments to their identity documents for the duration of their sentence unless a district attorney, a county sheriff, the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) or a department chaplain requests one on their behalf. 

A companion bill, Senate Bill 2356, includes language that would prohibit incarcerated trans people from correcting their legal name. Both versions of the legislation apply to driver’s licenses, state IDs, birth certificates and virtually all other forms of government documentation.

While the Senate version of the bill has yet to come up for a vote, the Mississippi House passed HB 1099 on Feb. 3 by an overwhelming margin. The GOP-controlled chambers affirmed the bill 84-30, with eight members not casting a vote.

At least 17 U.S. states already ban people with criminal convictions from changing their name, whether temporarily or permanently, according to a 2020 analysis by non-profit news organization The Marshall Project. Some states lift the restriction once a sentence is completed or a few years afterward, but in Florida and Iowa, people with a felony conviction aren’t ever permitted to change their name. 

LGBTQ2S+ groups have condemned the legislation. In a statement after the House version passed last week, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) referred to HB 1099 as an “exceptionally shameful example of politicians trying to score political points on the backs of some of the most vulnerable individuals in our society.”

Should either of these bills become law, the added burden would only “increase the stigma that exists” for trans people in prison, according to Rob Hill, the Mississippi state director at HRC’s Project One America. Trans inmates are among some of the most vulnerable incarcerated populations, Hill says. They are usually not housed in accordance with their gender, and are subjected to more violence and sexual assault while serving their sentence. 

“It’s already very difficult for trans people who are imprisoned,” Hill tells Xtra. “This [bill] adds further insult by denying them the dignity of having the name that they choose and gender marker that matches their gender identity.”

Bills HB 1099 and SB 2356 are the first of their kind, according to Hill. He says that no proposal to block trans inmate access to affirming documentation has ever been put forward in the state of Mississippi, but with the state legislature set to adjourn in two months, there could be even more attempts to pass transphobic legislation this year.

“There’s still a possibility of them attempting to amend other legislation that include anti-trans language,” he says, “so we’re watching out for that.”

The Mississippi bills were introduced amid a surge in transphobic legislation being pushed across the United States, the majority of which targets trans youth participating in athletics or seeking gender-affirming medical care. Approximately a dozen such bills were signed into law last year—including eight trans sports bans—and more than seven U.S. states have already introduced similar legislation in 2022.

Accordingly, SB 2356 originally included a section that would have prohibited trans minors from changing their name or gender marker. Its author, Mississippi State Sen. Chad McMahan (R-6th District), eventually struck that provision from the current version of the bill.

Less than a year after the state passed its own sports ban, Hill says SB 2356 and its companion bill send a “dangerous message” to all trans Mississippians. Last March, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves became the first governor to sign an anti-trans law in 2021, making his state the first to limit trans youth participation in sports since Idaho a year prior.

“It doesn’t just affect trans inmates—it affects the whole of the trans population in Mississippi,” Hill says. “You already feel unsafe and don’t feel valuable.”

The Campaign for Southern Equality, an advocacy group focusing on LGBTQ2S+ rights in the southern U.S., believes that trans people of colour stand to be impacted by this legislation the hardest. Ivy Hill, its community health program director, tells Xtra in an email that members of this group “face disproportionate rates of incarceration because of overpolicing and racist and transphobic profiling, among other systematic issues of discrimination and marginalization.

“A bill like HB 1099 compounds the pains of this marginalization even further, denying incarcerated trans people the basic dignity of being addressed by their chosen name and being seen as the gender they know themselves to be,” Hill says. “This bill is a shameful piece of a broader attack on LGBTQ people that is surging in many state legislatures, including many in the South.” 

Black trans women are particularly likely to be incarcerated, according to the National Center for Trans Equality (NCTE). In a 2015 survey, nearly one in 10 Black trans female respondents (9 percent) had been housed in a U.S. prison within the past year. That rate was over four times higher than white trans women.

Proposals like the Mississippi bills effectively “erase, silence and humiliate” already marginalized populations in all areas of life, including “school, health care facilities and even prisons,” Hill says. 

“Lawmakers must listen to the majority of Americans—including a majority in Mississipp—who oppose anti-LGBTQ discrimination, reject these politics of division, and strive to build a country where everyone is treated with respect,” they add. “We send love to every person harmed by this bill and solidarity to the many advocates working to defeat this legislation in Mississippi.”