The ACLU is currently tracking over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills across the country, the vast majority of which target transgender people, and transgender youth in particular. With this rise in anti-LGBTQ legislation, one type of bill has resurfaced: bathroom bills that would force transgender people to use the bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth (i.e., what's on their birth certificates).

High profile figures, including children's book author J. K. Rowling, have claimed that such policies would promote public safety. They imply that trans-inclusive bathroom policies will result in more sexual assaults. In my new book, Free to Be: Understanding Kids & Gender Identity, I try to move away from charged political rhetoric and towards science. After all, the best public policies are evidence-based, not rhetoric-based. Let's take a look at what the peer-reviewed research suggests when it comes to policies that allow trans people to use the facilities that match their gender identities.

In 2019, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data from a sample of 3,673 transgender students in grades seven through twelve. Their study,........

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