South Dakota signs more patriarchal enforcement bills into law
South Dakota Governor signs bills erasing trans people, making abortion and emergency contraception a felony, and allowing children to marry adults on the same day. More legislation signed on the same date mandates sex-based segregation and effectively bans trans people in publicly funded lodgings.
A patriarchal anti-abortion, anti-trans, and anti-woman trifecta furthers legal and criminal enforcement to punish trans people and women.
In a show of force for reactionary patriarchy's anti-trans political movement, the South Dakota Governor signs 6 laws on the same day, all of which target women and trans people while reinforcing patriarchal social control.
On March 20, South Dakota’s governor signed multiple bills into law. These include HB 1184– a bill that applies the same definitions of “sex” used in Trump’s day one anti-trans executive order statewide, SB 159– revising the prior prohibition on child marriage to allow minors at the age of 16 to marry adults or each other, and HB 1161– which mandates sex-segregation and effectively bans trans people in “changing rooms, sleeping quarters, and restrooms”.
All three of these bills were announced in one press release.
In another press release issued the same day, it was announced that Gov. Rhoden also signed HB 1274– a bill that makes emergency contraception and all other forms of abortion treatments or providing information related to abortion treatments a class six felony.
Class six felonies in South Dakota come with the penalty of 2 years in prison, a fine of $4,000, or both– this means that helping end an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy– including advertising or providing information about abortion care can now be punished with two years in prison on the first offense.
The second press release also announced the signing of two additional bills.
The revised statute on child marriage in South Dakota now allows a minor between 16 years and 18 years old to marry any adult as long as the legal guardian, two parents, or the minor themselves sign off on it.
It’s not a coincidence that the press release announcing the erasure of trans people in legal definitions statewide also announced the new permission for child marriage and mandated sex segregation as well as de facto trans exclusion in facilities that take any public dollars.
Nor is it shocking that this press release was titled Gov. Rhoden Signs South Dakota Values Bills into Law.
Instead, it is reflective of the patriarchal and reactionary animus behind anti-trans politics.
Anti-trans politics protects social control including men’s position in the gender hierarchy and the status of everyone else as either property or incubator.
Those are the values the Governor is, whether intentionally or not, alluding to, when he made his statements on the signing of the bills.
“South Dakota has always stood for truth, and my Administration will continue to uphold the values that make our state strong, safe, and free. These bills reflect our commitment to carry those values forward for future generations.”
A way of looking at this is that “truth” is a euphemism for patriarchal control, laundered through notions of “common sense”.
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Under the same point of view “strong, safe, and free” is, in context, an enforcement of men’s power over society and everyone in it, and the relative freedoms they enjoy that are only available due to the disenfranchisement of those under cis men in the gender hierarchy.
The same lens reveals that by saying “carry those values forward for future generations”, Gov. Rhoden confesses that this state of things is not natural or automatic, but taught and enforced. Therefore, it isn't some sort of "truth", but rather a socially-constructed relationship.
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