New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has signed HB619 and HB1205. The first bill restricts bottom surgery for minors in the Granite State. The second requires sports in schools to be divided by biological sex.
Get more background on HB619 here and HB1205 here.
Top surgery is not prohibited, so HB619 is an incremental step in the right direction.
New Hampshire is the Twenty-Six state to place restrictions on so-called Gender affimding care for minors. There is clearly more work to be done to protect children.
Update: I’ve added a press release from Cornerstone on the veto of HB396 (which is related)
Gov. Sununu Moves to Integrate Biological Males into Women’s Prisons, Locker Rooms, and Restrooms
CONCORD, N.H. – Today, Governor Chris Sununu vetoed HB 396, relative to the state recognition of biological sex.
This simple bill would have maintained the rights of New Hampshire institutions to consider biological sex in separating prisons, athletic competitions, bathrooms, and locker rooms. The legislation did not mandate policy; instead, it would have clarified that New Hampshire law does not prohibit all sex separation.
HB 396 was urgently necessary because Sununu’s own left-wing Department of Justice has falsely claimed that New Hampshire law prohibits all separation on the basis of biological sex. These claims have deceived many schools and other public entities into prohibiting all biological sex separation.
Earlier this year, leading Democrat state representative Marjorie Smith praised New Hampshire’s Attorney General for his lobbying work, saying that the DOJ is the most progressive it has been in her 25 years as a legislator. Smith previously served under Democratic governors Shaheen, Lynch, and Hassan.
Milford School District is one example of a district which disregards biological sex because board members have accepted these false claims. In a House committee hearing on HB 396, one young mother from Milford told committee members that a biological male is not only using her daughter’s locker room, but also mocking her daughter, insulting her privacy and dignity. Similar reports have come from Interlakes and other school districts.
“By vetoing HB 396, Sununu has ratified the actions of his DOJ and given them carte blanche to ban sex separation in bathrooms, locker rooms, sports, and prisons,” said Cornerstone Executive Director, Shannon McGinley.
HB 1205, a bill Sununu signed which purports to protect women’s sports, will have little to no long-term effect. That bill uses birth certificates rather than biology to separate the sexes – a strategy that has been enjoined by courts in other states.
Polling shows that Governor Sununu’s action today is monumentally unpopular. While only 18% of Granite Staters support banning sex separation in school sports, only 10% support banning biological sex separation in restrooms and locker rooms.
“Governor Sununu’s move to ban sex separation in locker rooms and restrooms is not a ‘moderate’ action,” said McGinley. “The Governor is siding with the most extreme far-left 10% of New Hampshire – people who would never have voted for him in a million years. We think the Governor will come to see that this was the most politically foolish calculation he could have made.”
I guess we can call this his RINO out. We expected him to do all of these bills, so we’ll have to take the points and look toward the next round to advance further protections for children and women.