On Friday, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) signed three bills into law intended to protect minors from radical gender ideology, while also failing to sign a bill that could have required people to use the bathrooms corresponding with their biological sex.
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“HB 619 ensures that life altering, irreversible surgeries will not be performed on children. This bill focuses on protecting the health and safety of New Hampshire’s children and has earned bipartisan support. There is a reason that countries across the world – from Sweden to Norway, France, and the United Kingdom – have taken steps to pause these procedures and policies. Even the Biden Administration opposes these youth surgeries, citing the American Academy of Pediatrics,” said Gov. Sununu.
Although the governor claimed that HB 619 stops “life-altering, irreversible surgeries,” its actual scope is far narrower than his statement would suggest.
The bill only forbids doctors from performing genital reassignment surgery on minors but nevertheless allows other life-altering, irreversible surgeries such as double mastectomies, in which a woman’s breasts are surgically removed, to continue being performed on teenaged girls.
It also fails to take action to prevent children from receiving puberty blockers, which cause irreversible changes and have been shown to stunt bone development, or cross-sex hormones, which can lead to sterility.
Another bill signed by Sununu, HB 1205, requires high school sports to be separated by biological sex rather than self-proclaimed gender identity.
Biological males competing in women’s sports has become an issue across the country, with numerous women’s sporting victories going to men, including in New Hampshire.
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The third gender-ideology related bill which Sununu signed into law, HB 1312, requires schools to inform parents two weeks in advance before they begin teaching classes on sexuality or gender ideology, and requires schools to provide parents with the curriculum for those classes upon request.
That bill contains a potential loophole, allowing teachers to discuss gender ideology while responding to questions, meaning that a teacher could potentially deliver a diatribe on the controversial topic without informing parents, as long as a child asked a tangentially related question
Despite signing three bills opposing radical gender ideology, Sununu vetoed HB 396, which would have amended the state’s anti-discrimination laws to allow for classification by biological sex in three cases: when determining which bathrooms or locker rooms someone will be allowed to use, when determining who can compete in sports segregated by gender, and when determining which prison someone will be sent to.
By vetoing the bill, Sununu is potentially allowing biological males to be sent to women’s prisons, where they will pose a serious risk to the women housed with them.
Sununu defended the veto by claiming that the bill runs against New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die Spirit.”
“In 2018, Republicans and Democrats passed legislation to prevent discrimination because as I said at the time, it is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die Spirit. That still rings true today. The challenge with HB 396 is that in some cases it seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves in New Hampshire, and in doing so invites unnecessary discord. For the reasons stated above, I have vetoed House Bill 396,” said Sununu.
Great news. Keep those pedophile pervs away from children.
It’s a small step in the right direction. The veto seems cowardly.
Guess people who do not like the safety of children in NH will just have to move to Maine where our governess thinks its ok to kill full term babies as they are being born.
I suppose they can always come to Maine where anything goes. if I had young children I would move to NH. Maine is no longer a safe place to grow up.