CONCORD, N.H. – With a new governor and a stronger majority this year, Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire are seizing on the opportunity to pass controversial proposals that failed to become law in the recent past.
On Thursday, they successfully advanced two such measures, including a so-called parental bill of rights, and a bill that would allow the exclusion of transgender people from bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, and detention facilities that align with their gender identity.
House Bill 148 would roll back protections in the state’s anti-discrimination law for transgender people, measures that became law in 2018 under former governor Chris Sununu. Its proponents have argued it will protect people’s privacy rights and physical safety.
It comes as the Trump administration has pushed to exclude transgender people from the military, block access to passports that align with their gender identity, and bar transgender women from women’s sports teams.
Representative Alice Wade, a Dover Democrat and transgender woman, made an impassioned plea on the House floor ahead of the vote, beseeching the New Hampshire House to kill the bill. She said itwould bring back discrimination in the Granite State, marking transgender people as a threat to public safety and privacy.
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“Don’t do this,” she said. “Do not make New Hampshire a state where people like me… are told we don’t belong.”
The same proposal passed both the House and the Senate last year, but was vetoed by Sununu, who said it “seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves in New Hampshire, and in doing so invites unnecessary discord.”
If the bill reaches now Governor Kelly Ayotte’s desk, it will be the first test of whether she supports allowing such restrictions on transgender people in certain spaces.
The political debate has shifted in the last year, as even some Democrats grappling with electoral losses in 2024 have begun questioning if their support for transgender individuals is out of step with the electorate. Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts set off a firestorm last fall when he expressed concern about his daughters competing against transgender athletes in female sports, but in the months and weeks since, more Democrats have begun publicly agreeing.
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Representative Jonah Wheeler, a Peterborough Democrat, is among them. When he spoke in support of HB 148 on Thursday, some of his Democratic colleagues walked out in protest of his remarks.
Wheeler framed it as an issue of consent. “The consent of one person cannot stand for the consent of another person,” he said. “If there are women who feel unsafe, if there are women who feel their space has become not private, then we should listen to those women.”
He said he’s heard from liberal-leaning voters in his district, including some who he said have left the Democratic party because they felt unheard on the issue.
“The orthodoxy of the Democratic Party on this issue has left us to where we can’t have nuanced discussions,” he said.
In addition to Wheeler Democratic Representative Peter R. Leishman of Peterborough joined Republicans in passing HB 148 in a 201 to 166 vote.
Both the House and the Senate advanced their own versions of a Republican priority this year: a so-called parental bill of rights. Ayotte has asked lawmakers to send her this legislation, which has become a focus of conservatives nationally, over concerns teachers are usurping parents and even indoctrinating children on issues of race and gender.
The version passed by the House enumerates many rights parents already have under state and federal laws, such as the right to direct the moral and religious upbringing of their children and to make health care decisions on behalf of their children, such as opting out of vaccines.
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It also lists as a right that parents “immediately receive accurate, truthful, and complete disclosure regarding any and all matters related to their minor child” from school staff. The proposal has raised concerns about the forcible outing of children to their parents, and House Democrats Thursday raised objections that the bill contains insufficient guardrails for abusive parents seeking information about their children.
It passed the House in a 212 to 161 vote. Five Democrats crossed party lines to support the Republican-backed proposal, while two Republicans voted against it.
The Senate’s version of the legislation lists many of the same parental rights around a child’s upbringing and education, and it allows parents to sue if they believe there has been a violation.
It passed the Senate in a 15 to 8 vote along party lines.
The House proposals must pass the Senate before they could head to Ayotte’s desk, while the Senate bill would have to undergo a similar process in the House.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.