I have been a resident of Arlington, VA for more than 30 years. I’m a tax payer, I’ve been a Girl Scout troop leader and a school volunteer, and I raised my family in Virginia because we believed it was the best possible place to do so.

I oppose Petition 432 as it is anti-human being and will cause far more harm than it purports to “fix.”

This petition says it is about protecting women and girls in sports, and specifically locker rooms and similar places. It is not. It is about discrimination and fear. In approving this petition, the Board of Health would, for the first time, decide on the basis of no scientific evidence that a specific population in our society is harmful, based on an immutable characteristic.

Despite the misinformation on social media, NO ONE chooses to be transgender. It is not a life choice anyone willingly makes. It is a lifetime of fear, concern, discrimination, and always wondering how you will be treated. Would any rational person choose these things? And to punish them by kicking them out of women’s sports on the ground that they are a public health threat is not only the first step in a wrongful campaign to erase them from our world, it is illegal discrimination. As a woman, the characterization of doing this to “protect” women is insulting to me.

Interestingly, the petition itself refers to “males claiming or pretending to be females” – anyone’s legal definition of a transgender female, although that is the clear intent. Transgender women do not claim to be nor pretend to be female. They simply are female in gender.

The numbers of trans woman in sports in all grades is absolutely miniscule. Whether they have an advantage in the sport is open to debate. This petition would simply cut off debate and harm one party irrevocably. Trans women would simply be shut out of sports and sports facilities. No accommodations, no case by case analysis, just a brick wall prohibition.

In entertaining this petition, you are not only not protecting women, you are subjecting trans women to the potential for abuse, harassment, and violence.  Incidents of trans women being beaten and even killed when forced into male facilities are well documented. If this were a person from another country seeking asylum on this very ground, we’d give it to them as a victim pf persecution. And yet this is what we are telling our own citizens – that we find it perfectly acceptable for them to be paced in harm’s way. Is that what this Commonwealth wants? If so, we have truly become a depraved society.

We all deserve to be treated fairly.  I know both transgender men and women, All they want to do is exist. Preventing that adds to the considerable mental health challenges we are already facing in this country.  Which, not coincidentally, would add to the burdens already facing the Board of Health in Virginia.

I am sure that those proposing this petition argue that trans women simply have a choice – don’t participate in any physical activity against cis women, and don't do anything requiring access to a locker room. Not only is that discriminatory, it is against the very ideas that a Board of Health should stand for: protecting and fostering the physical and mental health of ALL its citizens, not just some, and enabling them to engage in physical activity to help ensure that health.

Even when balancing the interests of cisgender women against trans women, one must also factor the actual incidents in which trans woman have actually BEEN a threat. On the playing field? The reality, again, is very different than the hype. There are miniscule numbers of trans women in sports. Would a male willingly engage in transitioning (however that takes form) just to gain advantage in a sport? On the other hand, when a trans girl or woman actually does enter a sport, how likely is that to disadvantage the cisgender females? This is not a “one size fits all” scenario. Blanketing it with a complete ban disadvantages everyone.

As for locker room or bathroom threats, how many of those has the Board of Health documented? Despite my research I can find two in Virginia in recent years that purport to have been about trans women – and both were not trans women, but MEN who were known to be men. This is not a problem, it is a political ploy.

No one should face this level of harassment and discrimination because of who they are. Not who they choose to be. Who they ARE.

There are real public health issues facing women and girls in Virginia, like domestic violence, maternal health, and poverty. Don’t let this discriminatory and hateful petition distract from your important mission to protect the health and promote the well-being of ALL people in Virginia. Whether you recognize them or not, trans people have the same right and should not be discriminated against.  This petition would do just that.