Protect Trans Rights in Concord next week!
Next week we’re facing an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+, especially anti-trans, bills at the state house. These bills cruelly seek to cut off access to life-affirming, medically necessary healthcare for young transgender people, forcibly “out” students in school, and expand discrimination against transgender athletes to college athletics.
But first: we are so proud of the over 100 people who turned out at the State House last week to make their voices heard against bathroom ban HB 148! We far outnumbered supporters of the bill in both testimony and sign-ins. Next up: the House Judiciary Committee will vote in Executive Session on Monday, March 3rd at 10 AM, Legislative Office Building 206-208 on whether to give a positive or negative recommendation to the Full House. If you’re able to come to the State House that day to testify on one of the bills below and get called to testify early, we’d welcome you to go to the next room over and listen to the committee vote on their recommendation! But no matter how the Executive Session goes, it’s not too early to tell your own state representative(s) and state senator - vote down any bathroom ban! Use our new action tool to click to send an email to your legislators now!
Monday, March 3
OPPOSE HB 377 (banning puberty blockers and hormones for young transgender people)
TIME: 9:30 AM public hearing
House Health Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee
WHERE: Legislative Office Building (33 N State St, Concord)
Room 205-207
Sign in here to register your opinion on a House bill.
OPPOSE HB 712 (banning top surgery)
1 PM public hearing
House Health Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee
WHERE: Legislative Office Building (33 N State St, Concord)
Room 205-207
Sign in here to register your opinion on a House bill.
Healthcare policies should respect the dignity and rights of all people, and healthcare decisions should be made by patients, families, and doctors, not politicians. The healthcare that politicians who want to control our bodies and lives are trying to ban is supported by every leading medical organization, like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. Puberty-blocking medications and hormone therapy for trans youth and adults have been prescribed and studied by experts for over 40 years. Young people seeking this medical care first receive significant counseling and a psychological assessment. Like all medical interventions, surgical care is highly individual, and only undertaken after significant consultations with experts.
Tuesday, March 4
OPPOSE SB 96 (forced outing)
WHEN: 9 AM Hearing
COMMITTEE: Senate Education Committee
WHERE: Legislative Office Building (33 N State St, Concord) Room 101
Sign in here to register your opinion about a Senate bill.
Parents and anyone who works in a school should have good communications and work together. But for several years now, anti-trans politicians have been using the term “parental rights” to attack LGBTQ+ students. This bill requires anyone who works in a public school to answer “honestly and completely” to parental inquiries. Anyone who works inside a school building could be forced to report on anything they might hear directly or overhear, including information about students’ sexual orientation, gender identity, or questioning status. This puts public school workers in an impossible position of having to either record or remember everything they might overhear in a school day. Instead of writing a bill that says simply, “teachers shouldn’t lie to parents”, the creation of this level of surveillance at school creates a difficult learning environment. Everyone deserves the right to be themselves at schools. LGBTQ+ youth should be able to come out to their parents when they are ready. Waypoint reports that 25% of young people in their shelter are LGBTQ+, showing the sad reality that too many LGBTQ+ young people are still abused, neglected, or even kicked out of their homes just for being who they are.
SUPPORT SB 210 (establishing a study committee to study the issue of school bullying)
WHEN: 9:15 AM Hearing
COMMITTEE: Senate Education Committee
WHERE: Legislative Office Building (33 N State St, Concord) Room 101
Sign in here to register your opinion about a Senate bill.
We know that LGBTQ+ young people experience higher rates of bullying in school than their non-LGBTQ+ peers do. According to the Trevor Project, nearly half (49%) of LGBTQ+ young people ages 13-17 experienced bullying in the past year, and those who did reported significantly higher rates of attempting suicide in the past year - which is completely preventable. At the same time, we know that harsh punishments for bullies are not useful tools to end cycles of harm. We can encourage the committee to take these things into account when forming their study committee.
OPPOSE SB 211 (expanding anti-trans sports discrimination to college athletics)
TIME: 9:30 AM Hearing
COMMITTEE: Senate Education Committee
WHERE: Legislative Office Building (33 N State St, Concord) Room 101
Sign in here to register your opinion about a Senate bill.
Transgender young people want the opportunity to play sports for the same reason other kids do: to be part of a team where they belong, to learn self-discipline, and to promote self-esteem. This bill is rooted in misunderstanding and insinuates that transgender girls are dangerous in contact sports and there is no evidence to support that point. Trans athletes vary in athletic ability just like cisgender athletes.
Wednesday, March 5
OPPOSE HB 324 (a book ban bill)
TIME: 2:45 PM Hearing
COMMITTEE: House Education Policy and Administration
WHERE: Legislative Office Building 205-207
This bill is deliberately wrapped in confusing language about “obscene or harmful sexual materials” when those words are meant to conceal its true purpose: an LGBTQ+ book ban. Whether or not we are LGBTQ+, we all benefit from reading about people who are like us, and different from us. We should have the freedom to learn and explore new materials without book bans seeking to limit us. But too often, opponents of our freedom take challenging materials, like those about sexual assault, out of context, when those materials can be useful tools for children who have gone through something horrific to feel less alone and talk to a trusted adult.
Sign in here to register your opinion on a House bill.
The best way to have your voice heard at the state house is to testify in person! The second best way is to email the committee your testimony. To testify in person, simply go to the room where the bill is being heard. Even if you get there after the hearing has already started, you can sign up on a pink card (for House Bills) or a white sign-up sheet (for Senate bills). You do not have to fill out your full address or phone number on the card (city or town is fine). Hand the pink card to any member of the committee (the legislators sitting around the table that is hearing the bill). Public hearings are live-streamed on YouTube on the NH House of Representatives Committee Streaming or NH Senate Committee Streaming.
Looking for feedback on a draft of your testimony? Send it to us at testimony@603equality.org and someone from our team will get back to you!
And, save the date for our Storytelling Launch!
Thanks to a generous grant from the Grassroots Fund, we’re thrilled to launch a new storytelling project for folks who live in the North Country, Manchester, the Seacoast, or the Kearsarge region (Bradford, New London, Springfield, Sutton, Newbury, Warner, Wilton). If you live and work in one of these places, we want to help you build a team that can plan a community event focused on telling transgender and nonbinary stories about access to healthcare and belonging in school. Stipends are available for storytellers. Other team members will plan community outreach and logistics, including food and childcare, covered by 603 Equality. We hope that beyond these events, teams will meet on an ongoing basis to discuss events aimed at understanding LGBTQ+ people and taking action for our rights and freedoms at the state and local levels.
RSVP to join the Storytelling Launch Wednesday, March 5th, from 6:30-8 PM on Zoom!
