By james art 
Sioux Falls, SD (Dakota News now) – South Dakota’s legislation is deep in the cross -day session is quickly approaching Tuesday. As legislators are considering various bills, groups around the state have gathered to gather against the House Bill 1259.
2025 is another consecutive year in which protests or rallies were held outside the legislative cafes in Siu Falls, all of them on the same topic: transgender rights.
In a short 24-hour notice, organizers as a transformation project mobilized groups in Siu Falls, Huron and Rapid City to gather against HB1259.
This bill would ban people from entering the bathroom designated for the opposite biological sex. Opponents say not only marginalizes transgender people, but believe it is deeply insufficient.
“We ask the state to pay lawsuits,” explained Vice President of the Transformation Project Everett Moran. “We ask the state to build new toilets. We ask people to become law enforcement agencies for who looks feminine or who looks masculine enough just to enter and use the toilet. I think it’s really important to ask yourself if this legislation is worth it. “
Inside the legislative coffee, the scheduling of conflicts led to a common 15 group without Republican legislators. Representative Kadin Witman thought about a week, which she described as disappointing in part because of the passage of HB1259 into the house.
“This is not about the protection of women and girls, as we heard,” Vitman said. “If they were actually interested in the protection of women and girls, we might have moved by ending a childhood marriage this week, but we didn’t. This is a slimly veiled attempt to harm a more harm to a vulnerable group of people, separating them and makes them feel worried. There is no mechanism for application. “
Many ranists have been fighting the legislation they consider to be anti-tins for a long time.
It is difficult to remain energized to continue to fight, but they think this is their only option.
“There are so few trance south Dakotani, but their votes and their lives matter,” said South Dakota Aklu Aklu Chapman advocate manager. “They need allies today and every day, and we cannot simply stop showing ourselves to support their human rights and human dignity year after year.”
“If they do not stand up, they lose their rights and their bodily autonomy,” Moran said. “They have no choice not to protest at the moment and not to stand up.”
Moran continued: “I think it is really important to ask why we use our taxpayer dollars to create laws that affect less than two percent of the population when there is no case of attack [by transgender people in bathrooms] to happen in the state? Why do we tell private business what to do with their trance clients? Why do we put prisoners from transgender in solitude? “
The House 1259 bill had his first reading in the Senate on Thursday, and Senator Jamie Smith, like his colleagues in district 15, said he plans to vote against him.
The democratic delegation in the state and ACLU are optimistic that it will not pass the Senate because of the discussions that they have with those who are in favor of the bill that representative Eric Makki said convinced some Republicans to vote against him.
“The Democratic Coach in the Chamber is struggling with this very strong,” Muckski said. “We had a very specific strategy that we tried to reveal, and it actually brought people with us.”
“I am encouraged by some of the discussions I have had with selected employees on both sides of the path,” Chapman described. “You do not need to know about the existence of transgender people or even support who are as individuals to admit that this policy is not well thought out. When you make changes to this broadly for something that everyone uses, I think you should have a very clear understanding of what exactly this policy will do and only on these grounds, I have the belief that our senators that this is not ready for Prime Time. “
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