Eileen Bilodeau

House Bill 1442 is a sweeping and discriminatory assault on the rights and dignity of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people that goes far beyond what most states have ever attempted. Rather than protecting anyone’s safety, this bill would empower both government entities and private businesses to ban individuals from restrooms, locker rooms, and other spaces that align with their gender identity — and then explicitly declare that doing so is not unlawful discrimination. The bill’s attempt to define “biological sex” in rigid genetic terms — for example, based on the presence of a “functional Y chromosome” — is medically flawed, invasive, and impractical to enforce. Its draconian language could turn something as mundane as using a public restroom into a potential “willful trespass” violation for transgender women, criminalizing people for simply existing in spaces that match who they are. Worse, enforcement of these provisions would almost certainly require humiliating and intrusive scrutiny of people’s bodies, anatomy, or medical records, fueling harassment and body-policing rather than solving any real problem. It would also place small businesses in the untenable position of having to police their customers’ identities or face legal ambiguity. Policies that force individuals to undergo invasive verification or open themselves to judgment by strangers undermine personal privacy, chill free expression, and endanger vulnerable people. Rather than fostering safety and inclusion, HB 1442 institutionalizes exclusion and stigma, harming not only transgender Granite Staters but anyone who doesn’t fit narrow, biologically rigid stereotypes. It contradicts New Hampshire’s values of fairness, respect, and equal treatment under the law, creates a legal framework for discrimination, and subjects ordinary people to needless intrusion and hostility.