With a 181-164 vote last week, the New Hampshire House of Representatives is advancing legislation “that would allow schools, government buildings and some businesses to restrict bathrooms and locker rooms based on sex assigned at birth rather than gender identity,” according to a report in The Advocate.
Reports The Advocate:
House Bill 1442 would require bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and municipally owned buildings to be designated for male or female use based on sex. The bill also allows businesses and other places of public accommodation to require that multi-user restrooms be used according to what the legislation defines as a person’s “biological sex.”
The proposal goes further than many similar measures elsewhere by creating a new legal mechanism tied to restroom use. Under the bill, entering an area designated for females while classified as male under the statute could be considered “willful trespass.”
The legislation also establishes a statutory definition of sex that centers on biological characteristics such as chromosomes and reproductive anatomy, stating that a person’s gender identity does not determine access to spaces designated for males or females.
Supporters argue the legislation protects privacy in intimate spaces. Opponents say it singles out transgender people for exclusion and undermines civil rights protections that the state adopted less than a decade ago.
The vote follows several years of legislative attempts to pass similar restrictions, which repeatedly ran into gubernatorial vetoes.
Weeks ago, Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, vetoed a comparable proposal that would have allowed transgender people to be excluded from bathrooms, locker rooms, jails, and other gender-segregated spaces. It was the third time in as many years that a New Hampshire governor rejected similar legislation.
Ayotte said the earlier proposal was overly broad and risked creating an exclusionary environment.
Her predecessor, Chris Sununu, who is also a Republican, vetoed a similar measure in 2024, writing that lawmakers were attempting to address problems “that have not presented themselves.”
Yet the issue has returned to the legislature year after year.
Read the complete Advocate story here.
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