I live in Richmond, and I oppose Action 4905.

The Board of Health has no business labeling groups of people as harmful based on who they are. There are real public health issues facing women and girls in Virginia, including domestic violence, maternal health outcomes, access to care, and poverty. This petition distracts from the Board’s important mission to protect the health and promote the well-being of all people in Virginia.

Across our races, backgrounds, and genders, we all deserve to be treated fairly. There is a nationwide effort by some politicians and interest groups to push transgender people and LGBTQ+ people out of public life. These political attacks harm all of us, whether we are transgender or not, because they promote fear and discrimination instead of addressing real problems.

Government involvement in regulating who belongs in restrooms, locker rooms, or sports teams does not make people safer. In my own life, the moments when I felt most threatened were the direct result of people attempting to police women’s spaces based on assumptions about appearance. I am a transgender man, I was born and raised female, but these experiences occurred long before I understood myself to be transgender, simply because I did not present in a stereotypically feminine way. As a child, I was repeatedly stopped in public bathrooms and questioned about whether I belonged there. On one occasion, security went stall by stall knocking on doors to find me, then confronted me as I exited. I was using the “correct” bathroom for my sex and gender at the time, following the rules I was told to follow, and yet I was treated like a criminal solely because others believed I looked too much like a boy.

No one was being protected in those moments. Instead, a child was harmed. I began avoiding public restrooms altogether out of fear and shame. That experience taught me that policies and practices rooted in suspicion and rigid ideas about gender do real damage, especially to young people who are simply trying to exist.

Participation in sports was also important to me growing up. I played on recreational teams in elementary and middle school, and participated on both club and varsity teams in high school. Having access to sports gave me structure, community, and an outlet for stress. Those opportunities mattered greatly to my health and well-being. Excluding transgender youth from sports takes away those same benefits and sends the message that they do not belong.

We are capable of offering equal, inclusive opportunities for both transgender and non-transgender people to participate in sports while still maintaining high standards of competition for serious athletes and respecting the importance of women’s spaces and women’s rights. Inclusion is not about taking safety or opportunity away from women and girls; it is about recognizing that transgender people are part of our communities and belong in them. We cannot create safety or fairness by causing harm or exclusion.

Transgender people, and people of all genders, deserve equal and safe access to restrooms, locker rooms, and sports. We need more thoughtfulness and empathy toward one another, not policies that frame certain people as inherent threats. Transgender people have always been part of our schools, teams, and public spaces. We are not the ones causing harm. Harm comes from fear, hostility, and attempts to erase people from public life.

This proposed regulation has nothing to do with protecting the health of Virginians and everything to do with discrimination. No one should face exclusion or mistreatment because of who they are. Trans people have always been here, and always will be. Trans people cannot and will not be erased.