This is the testimony I recently submitted to the NH House Judiciary Committee.
“I am writing in support of HB396, Relative to the State Recognition of Biological Sex.
As a law, HB396 would allow state agencies to use biological sex as a consideration when setting policies that impact women’s safety and privacy.
As Ian Huyett of Cornerstone said in his testimony at the hearing for HB396, biological sex is already being considered by our state prisons as a factor in what facilities to assign inmates to. Housing a male rapist who identifies as a woman with female inmates would be very dangerous for those women.
If New Hampshire continues down the path of ignoring biological sex we could end up like other states where males who identify as women are housed with female inmates without consideration for their crimes or how dangerous they are for the women they are housed with.
Women’s Liberation Front wrote about the danger women are facing in these situations:
Female inmates are all too often assaulted by guards, wardens, and other male staff, including, in at least one facility, a pastor. Briane Moore was subjected to recurring sexual assault by a prison official during her incarceration in a West Virginia facility. In a shocking case of abuse, cruelty, and corruption, 28 female inmates in Indiana were raped, beaten, and intimidated for hours by two male inmates who had purchased a key to the women’s section of the jail from a male guard. Although they had access to live camera feeds, the officers on duty at Indiana jail did nothing to stop the attacks or put an end to what the women described as “a night of terror.”
Gender Self-Identification policies also put women at increased risk of sexual assault, as well as unwanted pregnancy, and emotional distress. In several states, male inmates who “self-identify” as women are housed alongside female inmates in women’s facilities. Most of these males have intact male genitalia and a high percentage have been convicted of sexual offenses and/or violent crimes against other people. One female inmate described the situation as “the most malicious way to tell an abused woman what we went through wasn’t important. That despite our trauma we will be forced to live, shower, and coexist with our pain by bringing men into our only way of living safe to be able to rehabilitate.”
Please vote OTP on HB396 to protect women and girls in New Hampshire.”
Related: Gender-Fluid Boy and Furry Friends Terrorize Girls at Middle School
You can also submit your testimony in support of this bill by emailing the NH House Judiciary Committee at HouseJudiciaryCommittee@leg.state.nh.us and asking the committee members to vote Ought to Pass on HB396. They are meeting on Wednesday, February 8 to vote on the bill.
