I gave testimony this week in support of New Hampshire bill HB396 to protect women’s spaces and sports. This is my testimony.
Related: Take Action to Save Women’s Sports in New Hampshire
This is the Live Free or Die state and Governor Sununu made a terrible mistake in 2018 when he signed HB1319, “prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity” into law. He thought he was integrating lunch counters in the deep south but what he was really doing was stripping away the privacy and safety of women and girls.
An estimated 91% of victims of rape and sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male.
In a Swedish study on a population of individuals who had undergone sex reassignment, the researchers state: “male-to-females . . . retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime.”
A large percentage of trans-identifying males, also known as “transwomen” are sexually attracted to women. They transition because they have a sexual fetish called autogynephilia. If a person has one sexual fetish they are very likely to have other sexual fetishes.
Here in Nashua, we had a male state rep, Stacie Laughton, who identified as a woman, was sexually attracted to women, and who was charged with soliciting pornographic pictures of local toddlers. Thankfully, he is being housed in a men’s prison.
Should men with autogynephilia and other sexual fetishes be given access to women’s and girls’ spaces of intimate privacy or women’s prisons? Segregation by biological sex can be a good and necessary thing. It’s not like racial segregation.
The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire officially supported HB1319 in 2018. They thought they were giving freedom to trans-identified people but they were really taking away the freedom from businesses and organizations to choose whether or not to allow men to access their women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
Let Planet Fitness choose to allow men into their women’s locker rooms. Women can choose whether or not to join that gym and risk seeing a man undressing or a man watching them undress. Or they can join a gym that respects their need for privacy and safety.
My testimony against HB1319 has been immortalized in the Hulu documentary “Changing the Game” and it is still relevant today.
Do you trust women to use their own intuition about who is safe to be in a women’s restroom or locker room? Do you respect a woman’s right to privacy? Do you respect a woman’s right to protect herself? Do you want to see women left vulnerable in restrooms or locker rooms to sexual assault, especially young girls?
Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to vote OTP on HB396, “permitting classification of individuals based on biological sex under certain limited circumstances” at sharon.carson@leg.state.nh.us; William.Gannon@leg.state.nh.us; shannon.chandley@leg.state.nh.us; Becky.Whitley@leg.state.nh.us; Daryl.Abbas@leg.state.nh.us; matthew.schelzi@leg.state.nh.us
“Governor Sununu… thought he was integrating lunch counters in the deep south but what he was really doing was stripping away the privacy and safety of women and girls.” HB396 would allow Granite Staters to acknowledge the reality of sex @BethRS62 #NHPolitics pic.twitter.com/0kf6SxsOIl
— Sidewalk Steve (@Sidewalk_Steve) April 25, 2024
