At Least Four States Ban Official Travel to Mississippi

After the Southern state enacted a far-reaching anti-LGBT bill, governors draw a line in the sand.

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.

Read Full Bio

Neal Broverman

April 06 2016 6:28 PM EST

September 24 2018 6:04 AM EST

Nbroverman

Sorry to interrupt...
But we wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. Your support makes original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Help us hold Trump accountable.

One-time Monthly

$19.67 $50 Other

$5 $19.67 $50

Following the signing of the nation's newest anti-LGBT law, signed Tuesday by Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, governors acted fast to ban official travel to the Magnolia State.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo (pictured) signed an executive order on Wednesday banning all non-essential state travel to Mississippi, requiring all "agencies, departments, boards and commissions to immediately review all requests for state funded or state sponsored travel to the state of Mississippi, and bar any such publicly funded travel that is not essential to the enforcement of state law or public health and safety."

Cuomo -- in addition to several other officials -- recently banned non-essential travel to North Carolina after the Republican governor there signed a law nullifying LGBT-specific anti-discrimination ordinances, banning them in the future, and restricting public restroom use for transgender people.

Mississippi's new law, known as House Bill 1523 or the "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act," will allow businesses, individuals, and religiously affiliated organizations to deny service to LGBT people, single mothers, and others who somehow offend an individual's "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction." It also directly targets transgender residents, effectively claiming that one's sex assigned at birth is immutable, and will be the only gender recognized by the state. The law takes effect July 1.