Rebecca Hoskins

I urgently, abhorrently, and vehemently oppose this bill. I'm a gender non conforming person, but I like to think that one of the least interesting things about me, as a person. As it is with every cisgender person. I think personality counts for much more, though I do understand there can be some intersection in the two. I don't understand. In a world and a year where there's so much else that critically needs legislative attention, why we keep coming back to attempting to legislate people's identities. Especially, when the governor has vetoed similar bills both last year and this year. Any overt attacks on identity like this haven't gotten past that point to become law. While there may be much I disagree with Governor Ayotte about, we can agree that everyone deserves the dignity of self identity. Each of us alone is the final authority on who we are. And individual identity is something that I thought was celebrated in this state. Is this the Live Free Or Die state? I could've sworn that was the state motto. I was born and raised in this state. I have never lived anywhere else. I've always felt as though I could truly be myself here and I don't intend to let that change. These bills are not genuinely, at their hearts, about keeping public or private spaces safe. They are about fear. I understand that it can be hard to understand a community that you're not a part of and don't necessarily have a connection to. But that fear doesn't absolve you from attempting to legislate a minority population out of existence. And such attempts will not be successful. Gay, queer, trans, and gender nonconforming people will continue to exist; beyond what these pieces of legislation attempt to tell us about our existence. It is very shameful that lawmakers keep trying legislative attacks like this. These bills are solutions looking for problems. No one is harmed by the mentions of gender identity in any of New Hampshire's statutes. Certainly no lawmakers of this state. The existence of other gender identities does not negate the genders that already exist. Many people would be harmed by the removal of references to gender identities in New Hampshire statutes, myself included. This would be opening the door and immediately testing the boundaries of further discrimination against the LGBTQ community in the future. There were four other bills heard by the committee just today that are blatant attacks on LGBTQ Granite Staters. The LGBTQ community doesn't cause any harm to the Granite State, so the sudden and aggressive attempted legislative stranglehold against us makes no sense.