In a move that echoes other legislation recently passed in conservative states across the US, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a series of bills that restrict healthcare and recreation rights for transgender youth, along with discussions on LGBTQ+ matters in schools.
These decisions, which were quickly met with outrage from LGBTQ+ advocates and various representatives, make New Hampshire the first Northeast state to ban gender-transition care.
The three bills Sununu signed on Friday include House Bill 1205, which will prevent trans girls from playing on girls sports teams in grades 5 to 12, requiring students to verify their sex by producing a birth certificate showing the gender they were assigned at birth. House Bill 619, which will bar any physician from performing any “genital gender reassignment surgery” on children under 18; and House Bill 1312, which will expand an existing law requiring teachers to give advanced notice to parents about sex ed curricula and teaching materials (allowing them to withdraw their children from certain classes), now applying it to all instruction of “sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or gender expression.”
Sununu did veto a fourth bill, House Bill 396, which would have allowed businesses and government agencies to restrict access on the basis of biological sex in bathrooms, locker rooms, sporting events, jails and prisons, mental health hospitals, and treatment facilities. If passed, the bill would have rolled back some of the gender-identity anti-discrimination protections Sununu signed into law in 2018.
However, advocates argue the three other bills Sununu passed completely oppose the sentiment of vetoing the fourth.
“Governor Sununu cannot say our state rejects discrimination and then use the full force of his power to block transgender girls from finding belonging with other girls in sports, censor curriculum that breaks down stigma against LGBTQ lives, and block access to best-practice medical care that doctors, parents, and patients agree is right for them,” Linds Jakows, a founder of the advocacy group 603 Equality, said in a statement to the New Hampshire Bulletin.
The second measure signed into law was significantly modified from its initial version, which included restrictions on a wider range of medical treatments for transgender minors, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and top surgeries. After the bill was adjusted, 12 Democrats joined nearly every Republican in the 400-member House, and it passed 199 to 175.
“Our politicians are continuing to fail trans youth: these laws are not actually about fair sports, healthy classrooms, or overall wellbeing, but rather imposing discriminatory views and pushing transgender people out of public life,” Devon Chaffee, executive director of the ACLU of New Hampshire told The Bulletin.
