LGBTQ Advocates Denounce Passage of Five Nearly Identical “Bathroom Bans” this Month
CONCORD, N.H. - This month, despite an already-bloated legislative docket at the State House and a recently vetoed bathroom ban bill (SB268), the New Hampshire legislature passed five anti-LGBTQ+ bills, with the House of Representatives passing four nearly identical “bathroom ban” bills, and the Senate passing one.
“There are real issues facing New Hampshire residents–and bathroom use isn’t one of them,” said Aimee Terravechia, Executive Director of 603 Equality. “The hyper focus on trans individuals in the state is a divisionary tactic. Legislators should be working to fix economic issues, and work to enact policy for the good of all Granite Staters - not enact discriminatory policies meant to single out some of the most vulnerable in our state.”
The bills, HB1217, HB 1442, SB552, HB1299, and HB1477, are part of an seemingly yearly, harmful trend of targeting LGBTQ+ people in the Granite State–particularly transgender individuals. Each bill will now move on to the opposite legislative chamber.
“The bathroom bans are part of an organized strategy to chip away at the rights of the transgender community within New Hampshire.” Terravechia said. “We’ve seen attempted rollbacks in rights to the LGBTQIA+ community around bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, and healthcare. We will continue to fight back against this kind of discriminatory legislation, Policies like these are pure political theater and have no place in New Hampshire.”
Governor Ayotte has twice vetoed similar bills (SB268 and HB148), and her predecessor, Governor Sununu, has also vetoed a similar bill. In her February veto message, Governor Ayotte called SB268 “overly broad and impractical to enforce.” Despite this, the legislature continues to push more extreme versions of the same legislation.
Advocates said that they are committed to continuing the fight to educate the public about these discriminatory pieces of legislation, and working to prevent them from advancing into law.
Amanda Azad, Policy Director at the ACLU of New Hampshire, said, “These bills would cause harm, permit discrimination, and heighten cruelty and harassment in our communities - which is why Governors Ayotte and Sununu have consistently vetoed legislation like this in the past. LGBTQ+ Granite Staters are our family, friends, and neighbors, and they deserve far better than to continue to weather these unwarranted and deeply harmful legislative attacks. We urge Governor Ayotte to again veto these cruel bills if they reach her desk."
Chris Erchull, Senior Staff Attorney at GLAD Law, said, “The point of nondiscrimination law is to protect people where they actually live their day-to-day lives — at work, at school, and in public. These bills are more than just corrosive exceptions to those protections. If every time you entered a building you had to wonder if you were there on equal terms, navigating daily life would become unbearable. That is the world the legislature is forcing transgender Granite Staters to inhabit.”
