Staff Report | news@seacoastonline
CONCORD — Gov. Chris Sununu announced he has signed House Bill 1205, which bans transgender girls from participating in school sports from grades 5 through 12.
Governor Sununu signed four bills related to the LGBTQ+ community on Friday, including HB 619, which bans gender reassignment surgery for anyone under the age of 18. He also signed HB 1312, which requires advance notice of “any curriculum material” that teaches about sexual orientation, sex and gender identity, allowing parents to opt out of their children’s participation.
Governor Sununu vetoed HB 396, a bill that would have eliminated anti-discrimination protections for transgender people and potentially paved the way for bathroom bans.
Advocates for the LGBTQ+ community and educators were quick to criticize the bill the governor signed.
“These unconstitutional proposals, now law, are a cynical attack on our state’s most vulnerable young people and will have a devastating impact on transgender and LGBTQ+ students who already face discrimination and isolation simply for being who they are,” Devon Chaffee, executive director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, said in a statement. “Politicians continue to fail transgender young people. These laws are actually not about fair sports, healthy classrooms, or overall well-being, but rather they enforce discriminatory views and exclude transgender people from public life.”
Sununu released a statement explaining his decision.
“As the debate over HB 619 and HB 1205 unfolds in Concord and across the state, political rhetoric has muddied the debate and distracted from two key factors every parent must consider: child safety and fairness,” Sununu said. “These two factors have been my primary focus in considering these bills.”
Governor Sununu called the bill a “common-sense solution that reflects the values of parents across our state.” “By enacting these measures, we will continue to uphold the principles of safety, fairness and common sense for all our state residents.”
Previous article: Why are there so many Republican bills about gender identity in New Hampshire?
The New Hampshire Community Behavioral Health Association, which represents the state’s 10 community mental health centers, also criticized Sununu.
“We are deeply disappointed that Governor Sununu has signed four harmful and unnecessary bills that target the LGBTQ community, especially LGBTQ youth, and ignored the concerns of mental health and healthcare providers, businesses, educators, families, and children,” the NHCBHA statement said. “These bills put children’s lives at risk by targeting them simply for being who they are. … Making these proposals part of the public debate will give some in our community the idea that discrimination, harassment, and worse against LGBTQ kids is somehow acceptable. … The main reason LGBTQ kids are more likely to commit suicide or have suicidal thoughts is not because they are LGBTQ, but because they are discriminated against, bullied, stigmatized, and not accepted for who they are.”
HB 1205: Bill banning transgender girls from school sports signed into law
“HB 1205 will ensure fairness and safety in women’s sports by maintaining a balance between athletic integrity and competition,” Sununu said. “This broadly supported measure brings New Hampshire into the fold, joining nearly half of the states in the nation that have enacted this measure.”
Transgender girls who play high school sports in New Hampshire had urged Governor Sununu not to sign the bill.
“You don’t find the level of acceptance you see in the sports world anywhere else,” said Mael Jack, a football and track athlete at Kearsarge Regional High School, interviewed in May. “I’m part of a team. It’s rare that my teammates pay any attention to me.”
Megan Tuttle, president of the New Hampshire chapter of the NEA, the state’s largest teachers union, slammed Governor Sununu’s decision.
“Public schools should be safe and welcoming environments for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Tuttle said. “It is shameful that Governor Sununu has signed this bill into law that removes students from sports that help foster a sense of belonging that is so important to young people’s development.”
In a statement, ACLU-NH and GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), which are critical of the sports ban, said the law would “require all girls to provide a birth certificate or ‘other evidence’ to prove their eligibility, which could include shockingly invasive ‘gender verification’ measures for all girls, such as genital exams.”
“Courts across the country have recognized that laws that blanketly exclude transgender girls and women from school sports unlawfully exclude them from a fundamental part of the educational process and do nothing to promote equal athletic opportunities for other girls and women,” the GLAD and ACLU-NH statement added. “Policies enacted by local schools and the New Hampshire High School Athletic Association to ensure equal access for transgender students and a level playing field for all students have been in operation without issue for years.”
“I am deeply disappointed that Governor Sununu signed HB 1205 into law today,” said State Senator Donna Soucy, Democratic Minority Leader. “This bill discriminates solely against transgender girls by prohibiting them from playing on teams that correspond with the gender they identify with. The fact is, transgender girls are girls, and forcing them to either play on boys’ teams or not play at all is an extreme and disturbing setback for transgender rights in New Hampshire.”
HB 619: Prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors
“This bill will ensure that children are not subjected to life-altering, irreversible surgeries. This bill is focused on protecting the health and safety of New Hampshire’s children and has bipartisan support. There is a reason that countries around the world, from Sweden to Norway to France to the UK, have taken steps to put a moratorium on these procedures and policies,” Governor Sununu said in signing HB 619.
Sununu noted that the Biden administration, known for its support of transgender rights, opposes the procedure for transgender minors.
ACLU-NH and GLAD said the law would “deny transgender minors access to some health care, impede the ability of parents, transgender people, and physicians to make individualized health care decisions, and open the door to further restrictions on the established standard of care,” which is recognized by all major U.S. medical associations as the only evidence-based approach to addressing “the physical, mental, and emotional needs of transgender youth.”
HB 1312: Parents can block their kids from viewing “objectionable content”
Sununu did not mention HB 1312 in his announcement, which would allow parents to opt their children out of curriculum about sexual orientation, sex and gender identity.
ACLU-NH and GLAD said the bill “stigmatizes classes that include LGBTQ+ people by classifying school content related to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression as ‘objectionable material’ and requires schools to provide parents with two weeks’ notice about such content and an opt-out clause.”
Soucy said Gov. Sununu’s signing of the bill “unnecessarily brings the culture war into the classroom. New Hampshire’s ‘liberty or death’ ethos and way of life is something we should strive to protect, and HB 1312 will do the exact opposite.”
HB 396 was rejected, preserving anti-discrimination protections
Governor Sununu vetoed the bill, which would have paved the way for transgender bathroom bans in schools and public places.
“In 2018, Republicans and Democrats passed an anti-discrimination bill because, as I said then, discrimination is unacceptable and goes against New Hampshire’s ‘liberty or death’ ethos,” Sununu said. “That remains true today. The problem with HB 396 is that it seeks to solve a problem in New Hampshire that has not yet occurred, and in doing so, it will invite unnecessary divisiveness. That is why I vetoed HB 396 today.”
Governor Sununu was criticized by the conservative group Cornerstone for vetoing the bill.
“This simple bill would have upheld the right of New Hampshire institutions to consider biological sex when segregating prisons, athletics, restrooms and locker rooms,” Cornerstone’s statement read in part. “The bill did not mandate the policy but made it clear that New Hampshire law does not prohibit all sex-based segregation.”
This report includes reporting by Margie Cullen.
