News + Updates
Updates on our work
The 603 Equality Civic Education Initiative creates a multi-pronged approach to engaging, informing, and empowering voters who care about LGBTQIA issues. An important part of that is by Tracking legislation that touches the LGBTQIA+ community and providing updates and information on how NH residents can effectively engage with proposed legislation at every stage.
SB434: Bill Hearings & Public Record
SB434 - School Censorship
Official Title: relative to regulation of public school materials.
Bill Sponsors:(Prime) Lang (R), Ruth Ward (R), Carson (R), Pearl (R), Avard (R), Victoria Sullivan (R), Keith Murphy (R), Innis (R), Birdsell (R), Rochefort (R), Moffett (R), Drye (R), Noble (R), Freeman (R)
Bill Hearings & Public Record (this record is a work-in-progress)
Summary: This bill would allow a single person within a school district to challenge items and have them removed for the entire district. Despite mechanisms already being in place for parents to prohibit their child from accessing content and materials that they deem inappropriate, this would empower a single person to remove materials for all students - effectively censoring materials district-wide. It’s important that we trust educators to build inclusive and thoughtful classrooms where students can critically engage with a variety of age-appropriate materials, and not create easy mechanisms for censorship.
SB430: Bill Hearings & Public Record
SB430- Forced Outing in Schools
Official Title: relative to mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents and legal guardians.
Bill Sponsors:(Prime) Lang (R), Avard (R), Birdsell (R), McGough (R), Ruth Ward (R), Innis (R), Gray (R), Gannon (R), Abbas (R), Victoria Sullivan (R), Keith Murphy (R), Carson (R), Pearl (R), Rochefort (R), Berry (R), Moffett (R)
Bill Hearings & Public Record (this record is a work-in-progress)
Summary: This bill expands upon the "forced outing" or mandatory disclosure of any information about public school students to their parents. Last year's HB10, the "parental bill of rights," created a situation where teachers would be forced to out LGBTQIA students. This bill strengthens that dynamic and inflicts strict penalties against educators who don’t comply. It does provide a very weak provision if educators feel the student is at risk - but risk is incredibly difficult to gauge on matters of identity and home life. This bill would jeopardize the safety of LGBTQIA+ students who do not live in an affirming home, and remove the likelihood that students would be able to build foundational trust with safe adults in their lives in all areas by turning educators into a tool of surveillance. The original bill text can be read by clicking the bill number. The committee hearings & public record of the bill can be watched and reviews at the “Bill Hearings & Public Record” linked above.
SB464: Bill Hearings & Public Record
SB464 This bill dilutes a legal definition, preventing civil rights offenses from being recognized as such.
Official Title: relative to civil rights enforcement.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Abbas (R), Keith Murphy (R), Pearl (R), Victoria Sullivan (R), Gannon (R), Avard (R), Birdsell (R), Innis (R), Ammon (R)
HB1376: Bill Hearings & Public Record
HB1376 - Anti-Trans Affirming Environments for Foster Children
Official Title: relative to a parent's ability to raise their child in a manner consistent with the child's biological sex.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Korzen (R), Kesselring (R), Litchfield (R), Mazur (R), Prudhomme-O'Brien (R), Reinfurt (R), Sabourin dit Choinière (R), Sirois (R), Thibault (R), Keith Murphy (R), Avard (R)
Summary: This bill provides legal justification for parents to raise their trans children against the child's intended gender. This is especially important when considering placements for children in foster care. The sponsor of the bill spoke to their intentions during public testimony that they didn’t want a potential parent’s views on gender “ideologies” to preclude them from being able to foster a child. As we’ve seen with other pieces of legislation, “gender ideologies” is a catch-all term utilized to other trans folks and assign their gender as a fictitious aspect of belief, and not a core part of their identity. The original bill text can be read by clicking the bill number. The committee hearings & public record of the bill can be watched and reviews at the “Bill Hearings & Public Record” linked above.
SB459: Bill Hearings & Public Record
SB459 - Anti-Trans Locker Room Ban / Prison Segregation
Official Title: relative to biological sex in student athletics and prisons.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Gannon (R), Victoria Sullivan (R), Pearl (R), Abbas (R), McGough (R), Keith Murphy (R), Innis (R), Bernardy (R), Litchfield (R), Mark Pearson (R), Lilli Walsh (R)
Summary: SB 459 is a multi-faceted bill that limits access for trans folks in locker restrooms, in sports settings, and designates that “biological sex” must be the determining factor in prison placement. This bill sponsor defines as “biological sex” like many of the other proposed bathroom and locker room bans this legislative season on a binary, despite the fast number of variations to biological sex that exist. This bill is another example of the state legislature attempting to police the movements of trans people in New Hampshire, despite two separate Governors vetoing three similar bills already. The original bill text can be read by clicking the bill number. The committee hearings & public record of the bill can be watched and reviews at the “Bill Hearings & Public Record” linked above.
🪦SB33: Bill Hearings & Public Record
SB33Retained from last year, this bill enables small groups of citizens to cause "harmful" materials to be removed from public schools. (Senate Education Policy Committee)
Official Title: relative to the regulation of public school materials.
🪦HB1778: Bill Hearings & Public Record
HB1778 This bill prohibits teaching public school students about "Personal Identity Ideology" including DEI, race, color, biological sex, sexual orientation, religion or gender identity. (House Education Policy Committee) Track
Official Title: relative to prohibiting the use of personal identity ideology in public school instruction and policies.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Litchfield (R), Nalevanko (R), Wherry (R), DeRoy (R), Thibault (R), Freeman (R), Mazur (R), Moffett (R), Gannon (R), Keith Murphy (R)
🪦HB1615: Bill Hearings & Public Record
HB1615This Republican bill creates an second-class alternative to marriage, in anticipation of a federal attack on marriage equality.
Official Title: permitting consenting adults to enter into contract-based marriage agreements as an alternative to the requirement of a marriage license.
Bill Sponsors: (Prime) Sabourin dit Choinière (R), Farrington (R), Granger (R), Drago (R), Dupont (R), Giasson (R), Love (R), Terry (R), Bailey (R), McFarlane (R), Keith Murphy (R)