There’s a bill on the ballot in Massachusetts in the 2018 midterms that could determine a great deal for the transgender people living in the Bay State. As the Boston Globe put it in an editorial, Massachusetts Ballot Question 3 will have voters choose “to uphold common-sense public accommodations protections for transgender individuals by voting yes, or to set back equal access by voting no.”

As ACLU attorney Chase Strangio wrote for Teen Vogue, “On November 6, Massachusetts voters will be voting on Question 3, which is an attempt to strip away civil rights protections for transgender people under state law. After decades of work by trans people and our allies, these protections are at risk in the first statewide vote to remove civil rights gains for transgender people.”

Ballot Question 3 asks voters whether they support an existing law that adds “gender identity” to the list of protected classes (with race, religion, and more) that can’t be discriminated against in public accomodations, resort, or amusement, explains Freedom Massachusetts, a nonpartisan coalition that advocates for trans rights. It ensures that trans people can use the right bathrooms, and now voters are being asked to decide whether or not they think that’s a good idea.

The news of a Trump administration memo that could alter how the federal government views trans identities has rocked our community and served as a reminder that we can’t rely on the federal government to support or protect us right now — the same way that the Supreme Court’s decision not to even hear Gavin Grimm’s case did in 2017.

That means that state and city law remains an essential safeguard for transgender people. In my experience, it’s an imperfect and complicated system.

Leaving Ohio — the state where I was born, raised, and went to school — wasn’t a hard choice. I had long wanted to leave it behind. Like many young Ohioans I knew, I was obsessed with getting out of the Buckeye State and going somewhere I thought would be better. It was an easy fantasy to have.

But the decision that finally pushed me to get serious about leaving the state was much harder: When I realized I had to transition genders, I knew I needed to be in a place that had resources and legal protections in place for me. Ohio wasn’t it for several reasons.

There are currently no laws in the state that specifically protect transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing, education, health care, prison assignment, or public accomdations, as documented by ACLU Ohio. So many aspects of my life and future, both best- and worst-case scenarios, would leave me without laws in place to protect me from being fired for being trans, from being denied housing for being trans, from being able to use the right bathroom. If I was ever arrested — say, at a protest — I could possibly end up in a men’s jail. These are things laws like the one on the ballot in Massachusetts can prevent.

While it is possible to change your name and gender marker on your state ID, as explained by the National Center for Transgender Equality, there is currently still no reliable way to update an Ohio birth certificate. Earlier this year, several trans people in the state filed a lawsuit attempting to change that with support from the ACLU and Lambda Legal. But as it stands now, my birth certificate still can’t reflect who I am. (That’s part of why passports are so important for trans folks.)