Rebuking last year’s veto by former governor Chris Sununu, the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would permit the separation of people based on biological sex in bathrooms and other areas.

House Bill 148 sailed to approval with a 201-166 vote, buoyed by Republicans’ increased legislative majority. In 2024, a similar bill passed the House by just eight votes. Sununu vetoed the bill, saying it addressed problems that haven’t occurred in New Hampshire, and the Legislature failed to obtain the two-thirds vote necessary to override it.

As the results flashed on the House screens, some people watching yelled from the gallery, “Shame! Shame on you!”

Before the vote, lawmakers from each side of the issue made their case, echoing the public debate over safety and privacy for women and transgender people that dominated the State House last month. Derry Republican Erica Layon said allowing someone with male genitalia into female spaces jeopardizes women’s privacy and safety, calling on her colleagues to “protect vulnerable women and girls.”

Alice Wade, a transgender state representative from Dover, spoke of a need for more open, honest conversation around transgender issues and to “stop the vilification of our fellow citizens.”

“This bill does the exact opposite, labeling all trans people as a threat to public safety and privacy while somehow claiming to oppose discrimination,” Wade said.

The House also passed a parental bill of rights on Thursday with a 212-161 vote. It would codify several rights that parents already have in New Hampshire under one law, explicitly requiring schools to answer questions and grant parents access to their children’s information. The House’s version also includes some specific rights of parents to exercise consent over their children’s healthcare, reaching further than the Senate’s version, which targets education. Right now, neither would specifically require schools to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents, which LGBTQ advocates have long opposed.

Potential bans on puberty blockers, hormone treatments and breast surgery for transgender minors also secured approvals, along party lines, from legislative committees on Wednesday. They’ll soon go to a vote before the full New Hampshire House of Representatives. 

The committee amended HB 377 to establish a six-month off-ramp for minors currently taking hormones. If the bill is passed and signed into law, legislators said, it’d allow people to wean off of those medications.

 

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.