I represent the LGBTQIA congregational organization within the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Virginia, Equality UUCA. We strongly oppose the content of petition 432 as well as the process being employed to change state policy. 

This petition is clearly about neither locker rooms nor about public health. This hateful petition is not a good faith use of the integrity of the Board of Health. This petition is a back door political attempt to win a culture war fight that the petitioners could not win in the regular order of the General Assembly.

There are real public health issues facing women and girls in Virginia, like domestic violence, maternal health, and poverty. This hateful petition is a distraction from the important work the Board of Health should be engaged in on behalf of all people in the Commonwealth.

Virginia should not demean itself to join the misguided national efforts by some politicians and interest groups to force transgender people out of public life. It did not work with lesbian and gay people, to the enduring shame of the Commonwealth for attempting, and it is not going to work with transgender people.