I live in Bristol and I oppose Petition 432.

This petition isn't about locker rooms, as racial segregation wasn't really about water fountains. The Board of Health has no business labeling groups of people harmful based on merely 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 hateful petition distract from your 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 force transgender people and LGBTQ+ people out of public life. These political attacks harm us all, whether we’re gay or straight, transgender or not, because they foster discrimination and distract us from the real problems we face. Hate like this throws open the door to discrimination that harms cisgender people as well, encouraging individuals and authorities to kick cisgender women from women's restrooms for simply not being feminine to their specifications, and to violate children with genital inspections as a prerequisite for simply wanting to join a sports team.

As a transgender person myself, I know firsthand how people really don't care about what I label myself or how I present myself every day--they love me for who I am. I'm the only out trans person at my workplace (in a conservative area at that); in reality no one cares about my gender identity, and nobody bats an eye at me using the restroom aligning with my gender identity. No one's well-being has been affected, either, by my using such spaces.

Trans people have been on the teams and in the spaces in line with their gender identity for decades. In no way has "Pandora's Box" been opened by allowing any of this to take place. It's only now becoming an hot-button topic because of the coordinated barrage of attacks on the LGBTQ+ community by a handful of hateful fringe individuals.

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