Gabrielle Healey | Oppose SB211

Hello and Good morning councilmembers. I have read through the latest iteration of SB211, and I adamantly oppose this bill. Though it appears to "Protect Women in Sports," it is more clearly read as a way to continue sowing division in our schools and homes. As with many similar legislation, it seeks to prevent transgender athletes from even changing safely and allows others, without retribution, to accuse and be suspicious of their peers who simply want to make it through the school day. Placing transgender women in men's locker rooms will not promote safety, but confusion and danger among those in them. Why use children in this never ending culture war? Will this not cause children and teachers to be in a constant state of suspicion of those around them who do not conform to your standards? How far will the government go to ensure every person at my child's sports game has access to her birth certificate? Be the cultural divide as it may, why is the government encroaching on our privacy in this way? Why are we allowing schools and the government to intervene in matters of my child's most sensitive and private areas for the sake of a middle school soccer game? Through questions like these, I begin to wonder who we are truly protecting. Locker rooms will no longer be secured areas, but places to hide, to be afraid, to force conformance based on outdated, poorly understood pseudoscience that holds no weight in the modern day. As someone in the developmental biology field, I can say with certainty this bill is not sufficient and misses a significant portion of the population as well. Those who are intersex simply do not fall into the binary spectrum set up in this bill, presenting as neither male no female at birth. With the text as written, you have given them no place to go to even change clothes, let alone compete in their school games, a foundational part of development. As such, regardless of opinion on transgender people as a whole, this bill is insufficient and does not cover all that it needs to address. There are obvious flaws in its wording, and it requires a more thorough understanding of what sex is before it can begin to define it and separate children based on it. I hope you consider my words as this bill is debated, especially at uncertain, divisive times as these. Thank you.