New Hampshire governor signs bill banning transgender girls from womens’ sports

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed legislation Friday that prohibits transgender girls from competing on school athletics teams that match their gender identity while also approving another bill that bans gender reassignment surgery for minors.

Sununu also vetoed a bill that would have permitted some businesses and government entities to restrict bathroom access to individuals on the basis of biological sex.

New Hampshire HB1205 requires schools to use a student’s biological sex at birth when determining eligibility for participation in youth sports. Schools would be required to use a birth certificate “issued at or near the time of the student’s birth.” Students who provide birth certificates that do not list the sex of the student would be required to provide other evidence of their biological sex at the time of birth at their own expense. The law leaves designated coed sports and activities untouched but creates a cause of action for students who have been “deprived of an athletic opportunity or suffer[ed]…direct or indirect harm as a result of a school knowingly violating [the bill].” The law applies to sports from grades 5-12.

The second bill, HB619, bans gender reassignment surgery for minors but leaves exceptions for reconstruction or removal surgeries to address “malformations, malignancy, injury, or physical disease” as well as male circumcisions.

The bill Sununu vetoed, HB 396, would have rolled back protections enacted in 2018 that specifically addressed discrimination based on biological sex. In the veto statement, Sununu wrote:

In 2018, Republicans and Democrats passed legislation to prevent discrimination because I said at the time, it is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die Spirit. That rings true today. The challenge with HB396 is that in some cases it seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves in New Hampshire, and in doing so invites unnecessary discord.

Civil rights organizations GLAD and the ACLU denounced HB1205 and HB619 as unconstitutional and vowed to fight the enactment of the bills.

Laws concerning transgender rights have varied widely throughout the US with Texas upholding a ban on gender-affirming care for minors while California recently passed a law that prohibits schools from informing parents if their children choose to change pronouns.