The fight over whether public schools in New Hampshire should be required to divulge information to parents about changes in a child’s gender identity has become a pitched battle in Concord, with the latest version of the debate playing out in a series of dueling State House rallies and a daylong committee hearing Tuesday.
Republican leaders have prioritized passing what they call a “Parental Bill of Rights” for more than a year. Despite holding House and Senate majorities, as well as the governor’s office, Republicans have struggled to enact a policy that could force teachers to disclose changes to a students gender identity.
The only parental right bill still standing in the Legislature got a hearing before the House Education committee Tuesday. It would require teachers to disclose changes to a student’s gender identity absent "clear and convincing evidence" that sharing the information could lead to abuse.
Under the proposal, parents could sue teachers for not fulfilling requests for information about their child.
Prior to the bill’s hearing, people on both sides in the issue took the State House plaza.
Speaking at a rally organized by the New Hampshire Republican Committee, House Speaker Sherman Packard, who was the lead sponsor of a separate parental rights bill the House narrowly killed last month, told the crowd this bill must pass.
“The school system is supposed to teach our children how to read, mathematics, and all the other subjects that go along with what I was taught as a child,” the 74-year old Packard said. “They are not supposed to indoctrinate them into some sort of socialist, communist society.”
Packard was followed at the podium by Chloe Cole, an 18-year old “de-transitioning” activist from California, who described being an “autistic and confused 12 year old” when she decided her gender identity was male. Cole said she now regrets that, including undergoing a double mastectomy.
“Today we have the opportunity to change the course here in New Hampshire,” Cole said. “Let’s not wait until there are hundreds like me standing before you.”
In a 2021 review of more than two dozen studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries — mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada — 1% on average expressed regret. And research and reports from individual doctors and clinics suggest that detransitioning is rare.
Across the State House plaza Tuesday morning, the bill’s opponents were just as adamant that enacting this bill would only hurt LGBTQ minors.
“Transgender and gender non-conforming students would no longer be equal to other students who are exploring their identity while they are at school,” said Chris Erchull, a lawyer with GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders. “They would not be entitled to the same protections.”
“This bill would do harm. Do you want that harm on your hands?” added Ansley Peacock, the parent of an LGBTQ public school student.
During the bill hearing, which due to high turnout was held inside the 400-seat Representatives Hall, the differences over the bill were just as stark.
“Schools are created by the government and paid for by everyone’s tax dollars: Why do they have the right to usurp a parent’s rights?” asked Republican Sen. Sharon Carson of Londonderry, the bill’s lead sponsor.
“These rights already exist,” countered Stephanie Cawley a transgender woman and mother of three who said she knew what was going on in her children's lives at school because she talked to teachers and volunteered,
“I think this a thinly veiled attempt to create a chilling atmosphere which will drive transgender kids underground, to a place I existed in back in the 1960s and 70s,” Cawley added.
Debate over this issue is all but certain to continue, either in this bill or possibly as part of the state budget that will be adopted later this spring. Republicans say they will keep pushing this proposal until they succeed.
“We have talked to the governor,” State Republican Chairman Chris Ager said to cheers outside the State House Tuesday morning. “When [it] passes, he will sign it into law.”
A spokesman for Gov. Chris Sununu did not respond to requests for confirmation on Ager’s claim. Sununu threatened to veto parental rights legislation last year, dooming that bill’s success. His opposition came after the Attorney General's office raised concerns the bill could require teachers to out queer students to parents.
Sununu has said he’s open to signing the right legislation this year.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.
