Thank you madam chair. My name is Nick Arteaga he/they and I am the Transgender Rights Strategist & Organizer for the ACLU of Utah.
They hired me because of the endangerment and high risk that the transgender community experiences.
Transgender people matter, we are real, we are here, we’ve always been here and I am 36 years young meaning I’ve been around long before 2015. We deserve to live full lives free from discrimination and oppression just like anyone else.
All of our kids deserve to feel safe and be safe in schools, including transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer kids, regardless of how many times they change their minds. Disregarding the harm that deadnaming and misgendering children cause is immoral.
Using transgender youths' correct names and pronouns significantly reduces rates of suicide and suicidal ideation by more than 70%.
70% of kids whose names and pronouns are used correctly do not kill themselves or think about killing themselves. Those kids matter
All of you have an opportunity to save lives and lower the rates of suicide and suicidal thoughts and decrease alarming rates of psychological distress and anxiety in our youth, our future, our children by voting no on HB250
Nobody who truly values us trans people as human beings would ever draft a bill like this or support it.
I would love to meet with you especially those that truly believe that gatekeeping names and pronouns for our youth and public employees will protect trans people and keep us safe because they do not accomplish either of those things.
For the sake of our children, Please vote no on HB250.
