House lawmakers passed what’s effectively a statewide ban on sexual content in K-12 schools on Thursday, which would also create a complaint and appeals process for parents to challenge books they feel are inappropriate.

With majorities in the House and Senate, Republican lawmakers also passed five other bills relating to transgender athletes, bathroom use by gender and medical procedures for minors.

House Bill 324, put forth by Tuftonboro Republican Glenn Cordelli, prohibits schools from providing any materials to students that meet the legal threshold for obscenity or fall under what the state deems as age-inappropriate or “harmful to minors.” This includes descriptions of nudity and sexual conduct, a predominant appeal to “prurient, shameful or morbid” interests and a lack of other literary, scientific, medical, artistic or political value for minors.

In a repeat of last year, Cordelli read two excerpts of graphic sex and rape scenes from books that he asserts are currently in at least one New Hampshire school. Other House members shouted at him and tried to end his speech, but this time Speaker Sherman Packard let him continue.

“Are these educational materials of any value to be in our school libraries?” Cordelli said. “Here is a novel idea. How about schools concentrate on academics and knowledge instead of sexualizing our children? Period.”

Book bans have swept the country in recent years, with a focus on books that are written by or about LGBTQ people. New Hampshire hasn’t made it out unscathed – several communities, like Bow, have seen challenges against school library books lately.

Many school districts in New Hampshire already have policies governing what content is allowed in their schools and providing an official forum for parents to question the materials available to their children.

HB 324 would require every school district to establish one of those policies and create a timeline and process for complaints. The decision would lie with the school principal, but if a parent disagrees with their determination, they could appeal to their local school board. If they dislike the school board’s review, however, they could take it all the way up to the state Board of Education.

David Paige, a Democrat from North Conway, agreed that schools should have these policies on the books but said having the state Board of Education – the members of which are politically appointed – constitutes unnecessary overreach by the state into local matters.

“If these determinations are truly meant to reflect community values, they should be made at the local level through locally developed policies and procedures – not by statewide political appointees,” Paige said. “School boards are not only closest to the communities they represent, they are also directly accountable to their constituents at the ballot box. If the policies and procedures they develop to deal with controversial materials do not reflect the values of their community, voters have the power to hold them accountable.”

On Thursday, the House also passed two bills banning transgender-related care for minors. If passed by the Senate, House Bill 712 would prohibit elective breast surgery and House Bill 377 would make it a class B felony to supply puberty blockers or hormone treatments to anyone under age 18. After Republicans tried and failed to circumvent a floor debate on the legislation, a long line of Democrats took to the podium to read testimony and personal stories from families of transgender children, eliciting an exodus of GOP lawmakers from the House chamber. After over an hour of speeches, HB 377 passed, 197-167. HB 712 passed 200-165.

Senate passes ‘bathroom bill,’ other trans-related legislation

State senators also held a lengthy debate weighing the rights of transgender people and women before voting 16-8, along party lines, to approve Senate Bill 268. Virtually identical to House Bill 148, passed by the House last week, it allows segregation of bathrooms, locker rooms, sports and prisons by biological sex.

Senate President Sharon Carson, a Londonderry Republican, gave an impassioned speech in defense of a right to privacy in women’s spaces.

“This month is national women’s month, and here we are talking about the dignity of women. That right of dignity, women have had to fight for for millennia. But we’re just expected to give it up to accommodate a group of individuals,” Carson said. “I don’t want to step back. I don’t want to take a back seat again. I want to know when I go to my local gym that, when I go into the locker room and change, there’s women there. I don’t want to have to worry that someone’s in there that should not be in there.”

After several other Democrats spoke against the bill, saying it is discriminatory, unenforceable and unnecessary, one senator had a message for the transgender people of New Hampshire.

“No matter how unnecessary or misdirected or, to some, seemingly cruel Senate Bill 268 may seem, we know you were born this way, so dance on,” said David Watters, a Democrat from Dover. “You are heard, you are seen, you are loved. Be fabulous, be fierce, be free. Live free or die. Live queer or die.”

The Senate also passed two other bills relating to transgender issues:

■SB211 requires that sports teams be designated as male, female or coed and prohibits transgender girls from participating on girls’ sports teams.

■SB 96, which Republicans titled the Honesty and Transparency in Education Act, requires school staff to answer all inquiries from parents about their children “completely and honestly.”

 

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.