A recent Boston Globe article profiles New Hampshire families leaving, or considering leaving, the state to continue receiving health care for their transgender kids. Health care for transgender people, especially youth, is currently under threat by the state legislature. Reports the Globe:
Last year, out of concern for their transgender daughter, Abi and Jacob Maxwell moved their family from New Hampshire to California just before then-Governor Chris Sununu signed a trio of bills placing restrictions on LGBTQ+ people, their health care, and education.
“We knew what was coming,” Abi Maxwell said. “It was taking years off our lives and we knew we had to get out.”
Maxwell said she thought California would be the most protected place in the United States, but didn’t rule out moving again if necessary for her daughter’s safety.
Since then, Republicans have increased their majority in New Hampshire’s House and Senate and have worked to advance more restrictive bills concerning people who are transgender.
House Bill 377, known as the “Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act,” would ban hormone treatments and puberty blockers for children under 18 when the treatments are used to affirm the child’s gender, if inconsistent with their “biological sex.” It would prohibit health care providers from offering or performing any medical procedure on a minor as part of a gender transition – when the sex assigned at birth doesn’t match the child’s gender identity.
If it passes, New Hampshire would be the first state in New England to enact such a ban, joining 25 other states that have banned such care for youth, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a Colorado think tankthat provides research to promote equality.
Read the complete Boston Globe article here.
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