That does not sound right at all, I’m pretty sure there’s a warning when you try to checkout a branch that would override local unstaged changes. I might be wrong but I’d like some proof.
>git status
On branch feature/redacted
Changes not staged for commit:
(use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
(use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
modified: redacted.py
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
Updated 1 path from the index
On branch feature/redacted
nothing to commit, working tree clean