Fair Wisconsin’s Testimony in Opposition to AB 311

Good morning to the members of the Assembly Committee on Judiciary. I am Abigail Swetz, my pronouns are she/her, and I am the executive director of Fair Wisconsin, Wisconsin’s only statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights and political advocacy organization. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in opposition to Assembly Bill 311.

Living as a transgender person in America right now means living in a toxic, fundamentally unsafe environment. Today, this committee – by scheduling this hearing on these bills – is making it more toxic and more unsafe

Being trans in Wisconsin today means being forced into the position of listening to the validity of your identity and your right to live a public life being debated in this hearing. And that is an attack on belonging and safety, and it is an invitation to discrimination.

Identity documents are foundational to how we live; they are the key to being able to participate and belong in our communities and access a public life, and birth certificates have an outsize effect because of how birth certificates impact other identification documents. And I very much agree with the bill authors that accuracy is paramount for an identification document; however, a ban on updates to gender markers on birth certificates will result in inaccuracies. If AB 311 were to become law, more trans people would have inconsistent IDs – IDs on which their name and photo accurately represent who they are while their gender marker does not. That mismatch can and does lead to humiliation, harassment, and discrimination – there are surveys that prove this, including data specifically from Wisconsin.

AB 311 also specifically attempts to define “biological sex” as a rigid binary and ignores the existence of intersex people. However, a person’s sex is made up of many components and cannot be reduced to or defined by any single factor, including chromosomes, and a meaningful proportion of Wisconsinites have sex trait variations and their bodies do not align with a strict binary. This bill would threaten safety and belonging of intersex people in addition to erasing the reality of intersex Wisconsinites – some of whom have submitted powerful written testimony on this bill, testimony which I urge you to read and to heed.

Trans and intersex people are our friends, neighbors, family, and co-workers, whether or not you realize it. I know that it can be difficult to understand what it means to be transgender, especially if you think you’ve never met a trans person. But I don’t need to understand every nuance of someone’s identity in order to believe them when they tell me who they are, and you also don’t have to agree with me on much to still agree that we need to treat other people with respect, dignity, and kindness.

AB 311 traffics in fear and lies, and it would make this state even more unsafe within our already toxic national landscape. In fact, even just having this hearing adds to the ugliness – I think you’ve already heard some of that today – although thank goodness so many incredible people have also chosen to show up and submit testimony sharing their vociferous support for trans people and even their own beauty, all despite knowing they would be met with disdain and denial (at best) by the authors and supporters of this bill. Because the reality is that living as a trans person in this state and in this country also means so much joy and community and solidarity and beauty. 

You can be a part of ensuring safety instead of trying to turn threat and discrimination into law. Vote no on Assembly Bill 311.