SB552

Dear Honorable Members of the Judiciary Committee, I am Lynn Lippitt, a resident of Milford, and I have transgender family members and friends who are at risk of being adversely impacted by this bill. I oppose SB552 for the following reasons: This bill removes freedoms and inflicts harm on a vulnerable group of people. Transgender and non-binary people have been protected by New Hampshire’s anti-discrimination laws for years based on the due diligence of prior legislators and the support of the majority of New Hampshire’s citizens. Nothing of substance has changed, just the political climate, and people should not be used as political pawns. There is no evidence that, as a group, transgender and non-binary people using the bathroom, participating in sports, or being in a shelter, prison, or other publicly funded facility based on their true gender causes harm to others. If an individual member of any group causes harm there are laws that cover that. The fear that an individual might cause harm is not a reason to deny a group of people their freedom and liberty. Girls and women can protect their privacy by using single stalls and changing areas in bathrooms and locker rooms. It seems the real issue is that some people are simply uncomfortable with the idea of using the same facilities as someone of the same gender who may not have the same body parts they do. But how will they know this? Whose privacy is being violated to find out? It’s not possible to know someone’s sex assigned at birth by how they look. This bill encourages anyone to violate the privacy of anyone else because they feel uncomfortable. The real danger is to transgender people being required to use a bathroom that is the opposite of their true gender. Violence against transgender people has been documented and is on the rise. Passing this bill will put transgender people in a catch 22: either break the law and face arrest, fines, and a criminal record or be harassed, bullied, and perhaps even worse. This bill seems like just another way to “out” transgender people without providing any real protection for women and girls. And this “outing” could result in physical harm and perhaps loss of employment. This is not a case of equal concerns: it is comfort vs. safety. The result of passing SB552 will be to put the majority of transgender and nonbinary people in harm’s way in order for a few people feel more comfortable. There is no way to enforce this bill without an invasion of privacy, the very thing this bill wants to curtail. This bill allows anyone to legitimately question someone’s sex at birth based on what they look like. This power can be used to harass and intimidate cis-gender people as well as transgender and non-binary people. Legislation limiting participation in sports based on sex assigned at birth is not the right, or the best, mechanism to ensure girls and women can safely participate in sports. Funding for proper coaching, equipment, and supervision for sports will have a much greater impact. For these reasons, I oppose SB552 and any similar bill and I urge you to please oppose this bill or at least find it ITL. Bills almost identical to this one have been vetoed by both Governor Ayotte and past Govenor Sununu. It is not what the vast majority of NH citizens want and there are much more critical issues that the legislature needs to address. Thank you, Lynn Lippitt

NH added gender identity protection to our law against discrimination in 2018. This protection was passed with bipartisan support and signed by a Republican governor. RSA 354-A:1 states that discrimination on the basis of gender identity threatens the rights and proper privileges of our inhabitants and menaces the institutions and foundation of a free democratic state. SB 552 asks NH to allow just a little bit of discrimination. This issue has been before the Legislature many times. Every time the Governor has said no by vetoing these bills and the Legislature has failed to override those vetoes. SB 552 seeks to solve problems that do not exist. This and all “bathroom bills” are rooted in fear, not evidence. This bill allows people to make judgements on others based on their perception of that person’s gender. This bill creates real safety issues. It’s long past time for the Legislature to stop attempting to legalize discrimination and to honor RSA 354-A:1 and the people it protects.

Leave such things to the local business / function owner you have more important tasks to tend to. Live free or die means stay out of such issues!

I OPPOSE bill SB552 based on humanitarian concerns

The irony of including a carve out for legally permissible discrimination in an anti-discrimination bill is deplorable. Let me live my life without being assumed I'm a predator or threat in an increasingly hateful world, which you are bolstering. Choosing to carve out legal discrimination toward trans people is disgusting and disingenuous. Describing a man walking into a women's bathroom does NOT reflect the reality that is women who are trans wanting to use the restroom or be treated like any other human being, with respect and an assumed good intend like what would be extended to any other human being. You will literally be forcing men into the women's bathroom with this bill. Trans men, who can be indiscernible from CIS men, will be required to use the women's bathrooms and WILL be accosted by those who align with this amendment's philosophy. Using an anecdote of a child predator to flag an entire class of people as predators is reprehensible and not reflective of reality. Logically substitute any other crime and class of people and it's clear how discriminatory this is. Are white men rapists and sex traffickers because Jefferey Epstein was? Are priests? Logically this makes no sense, but it gives people and organizations permission for legally protected discrimination. With regard to sports, the lack of education and interest to develop understanding on the subject is nothing short of willful ignorance. Trans people, especially women who are on hormone replacement therapy, are wholistically effected by those hormones. Bodies change drastically and in many ways. Muscles atrophy on HRT. That is science, not opinion. These decisions are based on personal anecdote, bigotry, and misinformation. While ignorance becomes pervasive, trans people will continue being harassed and targeted. Now, if this passes, the law will protect and bolster the actions of bigots. If you amend this bill, make sure to remove the phrase "treat all persons without discrimination and with equal dignity and respect", because it will no longer be applicable. I hope there is a God, so that those who perpetuate this hate are judged accordingly.

I oppose replacing HB572 with HB1616. Changing the current bill with another that had been tabled/rejected is not the intent of HB572.. I support information and recommendations for childhood vaccines and adult vacci.nes

I oppose this bill as it does not support the rights and dignity of all Granite Staters. Transgender and gender nonconforming people deserve safe access to public spaces as they go about living, working, and contributing to our communities. Bathroom bans simply have no place in New Hampshire.

No evidence of risk. I oppose. Help our kids don’t ostracize!

Trans people are not a threat to our kids or communities. Anti-trans propaganda and bills are. Voters recognize this. The majority of voters around the nation and in NH support the human rights of trans people. We recognize anti-trans bills for the cruel, extremely harmful, and fruitless distraction from the work that our legislature should be doing - addressing our very real housing crisis and addressing other basic unmet needs. Stop this violence. Oppose this bill.

This ideological bullying of people who only want to exist. The statistics and science bear this out: trans people aren’t the perpetrators. They are the VICTIMS of crime. They deserve rights and protection. This bill is abhorrent and whoever authored it and whoever supports it should be ashamed of their bullying stance.

This bill is yet another cruel and non-essential targeting of transgender Americans.

This bill is a clear attempt to continue the unwarranted attack on our trans and more gender fluid friends, neighbors and family. There is no data, anecdotal or otherwise to indicate that women in these places are at risk of assault by trans women. Data shows that cis white men are overwhelmingly responsible for assaults on women, in ALL the spaces; why are we not spending our precious time and energy on figuring out how to stop real predators? Defining gender in such black and white terms as "biologically male or female" is deeply problematic and scientifically inaccurate, and discriminates against the minority of our population born with biological complexities that naturally defy such glib assignment. How could this possibly be enforced without putting MORE women at risk, given the concerning increase in recent years of people attacking women (both trans AND cis) in public bathrooms based on a subjective, uneducated snap judgment about their appearance as not being feminine enough. This and all other bills like it make all women less safe, and they are not what we want in NH.

SB552 is neither based on neurobiological science nor actual lived fact. I oppose this bill and urge you to do the same.

Please stop hurting the transgender community. There is no threat inside a public restroom or elsewhere. All these bills do is create pain and suffering to citizens of our state along with their families and friends. The pain that is caused within the trans community with this constant stream of bills aimed at threatening your own constituents is pointless and cruel. This community has suffered enough. They are not a threat to anyone inside or outside of private spaces. You as a government are here to represent, support, and protect the people who live here in NH, not to create enemies of each other. Please, this has all gone too far, and we are all hurting because of it.

This bill is discriminatory and persecutes a particular group of people. It is unethical and cruel. I oppose.

Vetoed previously, let's not waste time. ITL.

Dear Chairman Lynn and Honorable Committee Members, When SB 552 came before the Senate Judiciary Committee we were asked to consider a simple question posed to us by a member of the House of Representatives. In her very powerful testimony she asked the Judiciary committee "What restroom should I go to?" What a question to have to consider. Under SB 552, if a business posted a sign — biological sex only — she would face the very real possibility of being challenged, removed, or humiliated simply for trying to use the bathroom. That is not a hypothetical. It’s happening already. It happened at The Liberty Hotel in Boston last May, Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, both cis women, tried to have a fun afternoon at the hotel’s Kentucky Derby party. Until they went to the ladies room. Ansley was in a stall with her pants down and Liz was washing her hands when a security guard came roaring in and began banging on the stall door. After screaming at Ansley and accusing her of being a man, the security guard made a scene escorting her out of the building while patrons in the lobby yelled at her with “Get him out of here,' and “'He's a creep,' The hotel has already paid $10,000 to settle that claim. Somebody thought Ansley, a cisgender woman with short hair, looked too masculine. So that’s what this bill invite into every locker room, every school, every public space in New Hampshire. We have a good law against discrimination. It was passed in 1992. Gender identity protections were added in 2018 — with bipartisan support, signed by a Republican governor. The law exists because this legislature recognized a fundamental truth: that the dignity and safety of every resident of this state is a matter of public concern. Not a courtesy. Not a preference. A matter of law. RSA 354-A:1 says, plainly, that discrimination on the basis of gender identity threatens the rights and proper privileges of our inhabitants and menaces the institutions and foundation of a free democratic state. Those are not idle words. They are findings of fact by this legislature. And SB 552 asks you to carve an exception right through the heart of them. The sponsor of this bill testified that he believes SB 552 "is a middle ground." He said "it doesn't mandate anything". He said it simply allows businesses and organizations to classify people by biological sex without legal consequence. Translation: NH should endorse just a little bit of discrimination. This is what that means in practice. It means a gym, a school, a church, can post a sign that says: you do not belong here. And the state of New Hampshire will hold them harmless for it. It means a trans woman who has lived as a woman for years, who carries a driver's license that says female, who presents in every way as a woman — can be removed from a women's restroom by a security guard, dragged out in front of a crowd, left sobbing on the sidewalk — and the business faces no liability whatsoever. This legislature has been here before. Several times, in fact. And each time, the person responsible for signing bills into law has looked at this language and said: no. Governor Sununu vetoed a nearly identical bill in 2024. He didn't mince words. He wrote that the bill "runs contrary to New Hampshire's Live Free or Die spirit" and "seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves." A Republican governor, using our state's defining phrase, to reject this approach. Then Governor Ayotte vetoed House Bill 148 in 2025. She acknowledged — and I want to be fair to her — that she sees legitimate privacy concerns in some of the underlying issues. But she vetoed it anyway, writing that the bill was "overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens." Then just days before the hearing for Senate Bill 552, — she vetoed Senate Bill 268! Her statement was direct: "I made it clear this issue needed to be addressed in a thoughtful, narrow way that protects the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters. Unfortunately, there is minimal difference between Senate Bill 268 and the bill I vetoed last year." Minimal difference. The governor's own words. And yet here we are again, with SB 552 — which a member of the judiciary committee noted, side by side, is functionally identical to the bills that came before it. This legislature has now tried to override those vetoes. Twice. And failed. Twice. Because even within this body, there are not enough votes to change the law for just a little bit of discrimination. So the question before this body isn't really whether this bill reflects sound policy. Two governors of the same party as its sponsors have already answered that question. The question is whether this committee will keep sending the same rejected bill back through the process — putting transgender Granite Staters through hearing after hearing, year after year — in hopes that something eventually changes. The argument for this bill rests on fear. Fear that biological males are in the exact testimony of the sponsor at the Senate hearing "putting on a little make up and pink shorts and entering women's spaces causing harm". I will not dismiss the genuine distress of women who testified to having had frightening experiences with men. Those experiences are real and they matter. But fear, however sincere, is not the same as evidence. And as Governor Sununu wrote, this bill seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves. What the evidence actually shows is that transgender people are the ones being assaulted. They are more than four times as likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. When forced into facilities that don't match their lived identity, victimization rates are not low — they are catastrophic. In prison settings, transgender women housed with men face sexual assault at rates approaching fifty percent. The GLAD attorney who testified in the Senate hearing identified specific provisions in existing New Hampshire law — RSA 354-A:18, 354-A:15, 354-A:27 — that already exempt religious organizations from civil rights liability. The concern raised about churches and synagogues? Already addressed. Already in the law. This bill wants to solve a problem that the law already solved. And what about enforcement? The sponsor, pressed on this point, said: "I don't know that, you can do body checks." BODY CHECKS? That's the honest answer. Because there is no workable enforcement mechanism. What this bill actually produces is not safety — it's vigilantism. Strangers policing other strangers in bathrooms. Security guards making snap judgments about who looks female enough. Cisgender women — tall women, short-haired women, broad-shouldered women — caught in the crossfire. One person who testified before the Senate committee said it plainly: she is the person who gets removed from bathrooms. Not because she is transgender — she is not. But because she wears a hat and keeps her hair short. It has happened to her in every state she has lived in. It happened during jury duty. It happened when she went to get a COVID vaccine. This bill would give every business in New Hampshire legal cover to do exactly that to her, and to every woman like her. New Hampshire's Law Against Discrimination is not a mistake to be corrected. It is the foundational recognition that all of our residents — regardless of age, sex, race, creed, disability, or gender identity — deserve to move through public life with dignity. Honor the law we have. Honor the people it was written to protect. And let's stop making them come back here and defend their right to exist — year after year after year. Please find SB 552 Inexpedient to Legislate. Thank you Senator Debra Altschiller

Humans who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, have existed throughout the evolution of our species. In many cultures, these individuals are accepted, not persecuted! I am trained as a Biochemist and Geneticist. I taught college students for >35 years. Over the course of my professional life, the scientific understanding of the gender identification, has advanced substantially. While XX chromosomes are primarly associated fetual development the female genitals at birth, and XY chromosome pairs with fetual development of male genitals at birth, we now know there are multiple genes on the other 22 chromosome pairs that impact genital development and gender identification. Approach 1% of humans identify as transgender. Is is horrific for enforce on trangender people a mistaken gender indentity based on the shapes of a newborn baby.