Laura Portalupi

This is an unsound and discriminatory bill that will only remove protections from vulnerable people. It will not increase safety in any way. A study conducted in Massachusetts found: "…the passage of such laws [on safety and privacy in public restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms] is not related to the number or frequency of criminal incidents in these spaces. Additionally, the study finds that reports of privacy and safety violations in public restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms are exceedingly rare. This study provides evidence that fears of increased safety and privacy violations as a result of nondiscrimination laws are not empirically grounded." The above finding comes from a peer-reviewed publication. The abstract is free to read here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-018-0335-z You can also read a free article that covers this issue (and cites this article) more comprehensively here: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/study-confirms-transgender-people-not-threat-to-cisgender-people-bathrooms Evidence shows that state-level laws that permit discrimination against non-binary and trans people have led to an increase in suicide attempts among transgender and non-binary adults and youth. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law notes that "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/) Here is another article, reporting research conducted by different researchers and published in a separate 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). The abstract is available for free. In short: "Enacting state-level anti-transgender laws increased incidents of past-year suicide attempts among TGNB young people by 7–72%."