The New Hampshire House of Representatives last week voted on four bills relating to LGBTQ+ rights, and for every bill, voted against protecting LGBTQ+ rights.
Two of the bills (HB 368 and HB 264), positive measures that would have streamlined affirmative birth certification and protected LGBTQ+ youth seeking certain health care in New Hampshire, failed.
The other two bills (HB 396 and HB 619), dangerous attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, passed and are being sent to the New Hampshire Senate. These two bills would undermine the right to equal protection under the law for LGBTQ+ people by giving a license to discriminate against and segregate LGBTQ+ people in schools and other settings, as well as make it more difficult for trans teenagers and their families to access appropriate health services supported by every major medical association.
“All New Hampshire residents deserve to live with dignity and free from discrimination, harassment, and violence—including LGBTQ+ Granite Staters,” said Chris Erchull, an attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). “Today the House took extreme and unprecedented action to undermine the ability of an already vulnerable group of people to live safely and freely in our state.
“By passing legislation attacking access to medical care for transgender youth and to roll back critical, established nondiscrimination protections to exclude transgender people from public accommodations and school sports among other restrictions, legislators abandoned New Hampshire’s values of fairness and freedom for fear-mongering and discrimination,” said Erchull. “The Senate must vote down these mean-spirited attempts to divide our communities and needlessly single out transgender people for unfair treatment.”
“Today’s failure by the N.H. House to protect LGBTQ+ rights is a shameful beginning to 2024 in a state that has historically made overwhelmingly clear that it supports and respects LGBTQ+ identities,” said Linds Jakows, cofounder of 603 Equality, the community-driven, statewide organization that works to connect, educate and advocate for LGBTQ+ people across New Hampshire.
“Trans kids and their families need to make private health care decisions that are best for them, and they shouldn’t be discriminated against and segregated in schools, carceral settings, or other spaces. We will continue to fight to ensure the rights of LBGTQ+ people are not violated by these dangerous, discriminatory bills as they make their way through the legislative process. When today’s anti-transgender bills get to Governor Sununu’s desk, he should promptly veto them, because ‘it’s the right thing to do,’ as he said when he signed New Hampshire’s transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination law in 2018,” Jakows said.
— from a GLAD press release
More: glad.org
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