New Hampshire lawmakers give final approval to gender-affirming care ban
New Hampshire lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to bills that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors in the state, sending the measures to Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who has not yet said whether she will sign them.
State lawmakers voted to pass House Bill 377, which would prohibit doctors from administering puberty blockers and hormones to transgender youth beginning next year. The measure includes a 'grandfather clause' that would allow minors already receiving care to continue doing so even after the law takes effect.
The state House voted 202-161 in favor of the bill, with two Democrats, state Reps. Dale Girard and Jonah Wheeler, siding with Republicans. New Hampshire senators approved the bill Thursday in a 16-8 party-line vote.
Lawmakers also voted to send House Bill 712 to Ayotte's desk. That measure, which builds on an existing law banning gender-affirming genital surgeries for minors, would bar children and teens under 18 from accessing additional surgical procedures when they are used to treat gender dysphoria, including facial feminization or masculinization surgery and what the bill calls 'transgender chest surgery.'
It passed the House Thursday in a vote 191-163, with Wheeler again siding with Republicans to advance the measure. The state Senate passed the bill in another party-line vote.
Passage of the bills, which, if signed, would make New Hampshire the first northeastern state to ban transition-related care for minors, comes roughly a week after the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law similarly preventing trans youth from being prescribed puberty blockers and hormones. Surgery for minors was not at issue before the court.
New Hampshire state Rep. Lisa Mazur, a Republican and the prime sponsor of both bills, referenced the court's decision Thursday in her defense of the measures.
'It is now legal and constitutional for states to regulate and or ban the use of these harmful drugs in minors,' she said, the Boston Globe reported.
Ayotte, a former U.S. senator who won New Hampshire's gubernatorial election in November, has not publicly said whether she plans to sign either bill, both of which were priorities for the state's Republican-led Legislature this session.
Also headed to Ayotte's desk is House Bill 148, which would roll back some anti-discrimination protections for transgender people that the Legislature adopted in 2018. Her predecessor, Republican former Gov. Chris Sununu, vetoed a similar bill last year.
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