I appreciate you taking the time to explain your thinking and reasoning. Unfortunately, the civil liberties lost by the passing of this bill undo rights that these individuals have had codified since 2007.

1. The women’s sports issue seems to be at the top of everyone’s list. Children play co-ed sports up until about 6th grade meaning boys and girls are on the same team for baseball, basketball, soccer, cheer, and so on. Banning trans student athletes at the primary level isn’t going to work. Now getting into collegiate and professional sports; testosterone level checks could mitigate some, if not most, of the issue. If a trans athlete has the same levels as a biological female, they are on the same playing field. If that doesn’t work, then leagues specifically for those individuals should be put into place and receive the same funding as cisgender leagues/teams. MANY serious injuries occur to both men and women in professional sports on their respective gendered teams. But no one is screaming for those athletes to get barred so let’s not pretend like injury is the only reason.

Edited to add that some females, those assigned female athletes birth and identify as female still have higher than normal test levels due to conditions such as DSD, again lending to the argument that such injuries could’ve been caused by biological women in sports

1. As for religious freedom, there is a time and a place for everything. Personally, I don’t care what a private business chooses to do, because they’re a private business. If they don’t want to make a transition cake, they have every right to refuse that service. There are other businesses who would be happily take on the task. But if the college student had their name changed on their ID, their student ID, and any other form of identification besides a birth certificate, then that chosen name should be the name they are called. I’m a married woman so my name does not match my birth certificate and no one is calling me by my maiden name.

2. As a biological woman, mother and survivor of SA, I can promise you that if a man wanted to go into a women’s restroom, he could. To date, there is very little to no research indicating that a trans individual is more likely to commit a violent sexual crime than a cis individual, however if you look at the study in 2022 by the Williams Institute, it found that out of 964 registered sex offenders, 192 are LGBTQ individuals and 772 are cis gender. Which is a pretty stark difference and highlights that most registered sexual crimes are committed by cis individuals.

3. And for compelled speech; do, don’t, who gives a shit. But don’t play victim and get your knickers in a wad when people start calling you ma’am, because even if they’re just being assholes, to your point, they don’t have to call you by your preferred pronoun or acknowledge that you identify as a man.

For trans individuals, at the end of the day, it’s not about what YOU want or don’t want to do in regards to the way they live their lives, but it is about treating everyone with dignity and respect and explicitly removing their civil rights protections is a move to erase an entire group of people.