I live in Loudoun County, as I have for most of my life, and I strongly oppose action 4905.

The idea that the simple act of transfeminine individuals existing in the same space as cisgender women and girls is a threat to the "public health" of those cisgender women and girls is laughable. There are real issues affecting the health of all women and girls in Virginia: domestic abuse, economic hardship that makes it difficult to access care, and a lack of access specifically to maternal healthcare and family planning services, to name a few. Transfeminine individuals are affected by many of those same issues. They are not a threat: they are vulnerable and deserve care and compassion as much as are any of the cisgender women and girls this action claims to be "protecting" from them.

As far as sports go, there is no evidence that transfeminine individuals who undergo hormone replacement therapy retain any physical advantages over their cisgender peers, and even if they did those physical advantages would not make them threats to the "public health" of their peers and teammates. For many children and teenagers, sports are a crucial space for building community, finding friends, and learning the value and joy in pushing their bodies and learning what they are capable of. It is cruel and shameful to deny that experience to an already-marginalized group of people based on nothing more than their gender identity.

Over the past several years and particularly in the last year, there has been an escalating, nationwide campaign to push transgender people — of all ages but specifically transgender youth — out of public life. Virginia must not fall prey to that campaign. It does not come from us and it does not represent us. Transgender Virginians are just as worthy of dignity and care as any other Virginians, and they are no more a threat to "public health" than and other Virginians either. They are just people, like anyone else, trying to live their lives in peace.

There are also other reasons to oppose this action. In other states, laws and regulations similar to what this action would enact have been weaponized against cisgender women and girls as well; if you do not dress and act "sufficiently feminine" then you are at just as much risk of being accused of intrusion as any transfeminine person is.

This action presents itself as being about the "public health;" however, it is anything but. This is discrimination, plain and simple, with no purpose beyond discriminating against Virginia's transgender population and attempting to push them out of public life.

Do not pass action 4905.