Lynn Currier Stanley, LICSW, of Penacook, is executive director of the National Association of Social Workers, NH Chapter.

This legislative session we are again inundated with legislation targeting transgender youth and their families. But we aren’t fooled, we know what their true intentions are.

Transgender people, those who identify as a gender other than what they were assigned at birth, make up less than 1 percent of the entire population but are being upheld by some as a threat to our society and children in particular. There are no gender reassignment surgeries performed on minors in New Hampshire unless medically necessary, but for some reason they believe the government needs to interfere in decisions made between youth, parents, and their health providers. Transgender girls are not overwhelming sports teams. However, we are barraged with false messaging designed to scare parents into thinking their daughters will never make the team.

LGBTQ+ youth have a higher rate of deaths by suicide, suicide attempts, and thoughts of suicide, not because of who they are, but because of the stigma and discrimination they face within society. We know when transgender young people are in supportive environments they experience better mental health outcomes. Trans youth are more likely to experience discrimination, educational barriers, and have violence perpetrated against them, yet the proponents of these bills would have us think it is the other students who need protecting.

But we know that this is not really about trans youth. The larger unseen goal here is the privatization of education. If we rile up enough parents with manufactured moral panic and encourage them to think that their children are in danger, it plays into their narrative around public schools. “How can we have our children attending public schools? We obviously need money for charter schools, private schools, and home schooling to be paid for by taxpayers.”

They know they cannot say “How can our children go to school with Black or Brown students,” or students with learning disabilities. Or students from low-income families or students for whom English is not their first language. This would be immediately called out for the discriminatory attitude it is. But, they have a new target now.

You aren’t fooling us. And we have their backs.