A Mississippi state senator is braving the fraught politics around trans rights in his deeply conservative state with an emotional plea to the state’s governor and colleagues “to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly,” and reject a hateful piece of legislation directed at the trans community.

“Mississippi deserves better,” said State Sen. Rod Hickman, a Democrat from Macon.

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This trans lawmaker’s colleagues voted to take away her driver’s license. She’s still hard at work.

The Black state senator, a lawyer and prosecutor born in Shuqualak, Mississippi, addressed Senate Bill 2322 in an editorial published Tuesday in Mississippi Today. The law would ban gender marker changes on driver’s licenses and other state identification, and require “sex at birth” on the IDs.

If adopted, the red state would become the eighth to require “sex at birth” on identity documents.

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While the change is not retroactive like a similar law recently enacted in Kansas, it will force trans Mississippians whose licenses are now aligned with their gender to revert the gender marker back to “sex at birth” on renewal.

Hickman called the bill a “burden” on those it targets, and therefore on all Mississippians.

“I did not come to the Mississippi Legislature to be a spectator or to do harm dressed up as policy,” Hickman wrote. “I came to solve problems, to make our communities safer, and to ensure that the laws we pass actually serve the people of this state. That is why I write today with deep disappointment following the recent passage of Senate Bill 2322, which is now pending the governor’s signature to become law.”

“Taken as a whole, this bill does not address a pressing public safety need. It does not fix a broken system. Provisions that invalidate certain out-of-state driver’s licenses may sound strong on paper, but they do little to improve safety on our roads,” he said.

Hickman was referring to a provision in the bill that would require out-of-state driver’s license holders to also carry documentation proving they’re U.S. citizens, and force authorities to report anyone who can’t prove their legal status to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detainment.

While that provision on its own is a naked civil rights violation (and likely to form the basis of a future court challenge, if the bill is signed into law), Hickman was even more unsettled by the implications for the other targets of the bill: trans people.

“The most troubling aspect of this legislation is the ‘sex at birth’ provision,” Hickman wrote. “It is a rigid mandate that ignores reality, ignores evidence, and ignores the human impact of what it requires the state to do.”

“It does not make a single Mississippian safer,” he said.

“What it does instead is require the state to issue identification that may directly conflict with a person’s lived identity and, in some cases, with other legal documents someone might possess. That kind of inconsistency does not create clarity. It creates confusion and invites unnecessary conflict in everyday interactions,” he continued.

“More than that, it is degrading,” he said.

Whether at a traffic stop, at a workplace, in a place of business, or in any routine encounter that requires identification, “that moment of mismatch is not just inconvenient, but also can be harmful,” Hickman said.

“It forces individuals to explain themselves in ways that are deeply personal and often unwelcome, and it increases the risk of confrontation in situations that should be routine,” he added.

About a quarter of transgender people whose IDs don’t match their gender identity reported verbal harassment, assault, or denial of services, according to the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey.

“We cannot ignore the reality that this provision targets a vulnerable group of people who already face disproportionate levels of discrimination, misunderstanding and, in many cases, outright hostility,” Hickman added. “Rather than offering protection, this law adds to that burden. Rather than making their lives safer, it makes them more exposed. That is not the role of government, and it is not the purpose of good legislation.”

“We were sent here to protect Mississippians – all Mississippians,” Hickman said. “And when we pass laws that do not protect, but instead isolate and place people in harm’s way, we have to be honest about what we are doing. This is not about safety. It is not about efficiency. It is a policy choice that carries real consequences for real people.”

“I say plainly and without hesitation that we can do better than this.”

Of his Biblical exhortation for to colleagues to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly,” Hickman added, “[It] is not just a personal calling, but also should be a standard for how we govern. Laws rooted in justice protect rather than target. Laws grounded in mercy recognize the dignity of every person. Laws shaped by humility reflect a careful use of power, not an overreach of it.

This law, said Hickman, “falls short of that standard.”

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