Laura Portalupi

This is an unnecessary bill that will hurt real people in this state – people who are beloved members of our communities. State-level laws like this one have been found to lead to an increase in suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary adults and youth across the United States. The abstract of this article published in a peer-reviewed journal – State-level anti-transgender laws increase past-year suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary young people in the USA (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01979-5) – provides a good summary. In short: "Enacting state-level anti-transgender laws increased incidents of past-year suicide attempts among TGNB young people by 7–72%." Additionally, as noted by The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, "Transgender people [are] over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime." (https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/) This bill will do nothing to help protect people. It will only hurt people. Please protect some of the most vulnerable people in our state. Do not pass this bill.