Is New Hampshire Trying To Make A Right Turn?

In a sea of blue, New Hampshire is purple going on red.

Draft legislation would allow discrimination based on gender identity
New Hampshire Public Radio
By Peter Biello
January 1, 2022


State lawmakers are again attempting to pass a law that would allow schools to discriminate against transgender athletes.

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Draft legislation in Concord, HB 1180, would add new language related to gender to the law covering birth records.

It would insert a paragraph saying public entities — like schools or jails — can differentiate between people assigned male or female at birth.

Similar proposed legislation targeting trans athletes failed last session. Laws discriminating against transgender athletes violate Title IX, which protects trans students at school.

Last year the bill died in committee, in an article in Outsports Dawn Ennis wrote,

New Hampshire’s HB 1251 — a controversial bill that would have outlawed transgender girls or women from competing on school sports teams matching their gender identity — died in the State House Education committee Wednesday, reported the Union Leader.

By a vote of 13-6, the panel recommended killing the measure, which would prohibit trans female athletes from competing in primary, secondary or college sports teams for women. Trans men could still try out and compete on any boys’ team.

Other problems over trans people in a cross-border dispute with Vermont have surfaced.

In cross-border school district, protections for transgender students face a legal threat
VTDigger
By Peter D'Auria
January 26 2022


In School Administrative Unit 70, an interstate district straddling the Vermont-New Hampshire border, transgender students are explicitly given the right to keep their gender identity private. 

The goal is to give students a safe place: Some kids may hide their gender identity at home, but be openly transgender or gender nonconforming — meaning they do not adhere to stereotypical gender norms — at school. Others may be confiding in a trusted teacher or staff member. 

Under a district policy known as JBAB* — a student gender policy used in New Hampshire school districts — school staff cannot tell parents, family members or other school employees about a child’s gender identity “unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure.” 

Of course a bunch of conservative parents spoke up…

This school year, a group of anonymous parents in Hanover, New Hampshire, is seeking to strike down those protections, according to communications obtained by VTDigger through a public records request. 

Richard Lehmann, a Concord-based attorney, told district officials in an October letter that he was hired by parents to “demand that the (school) Board repeal or substantially amend” the policy.

The schools’ requirements “interfere in the constitutional rights of parents to raise their children without undue interference from the government” and “violate federal educational privacy laws which guarantee parental access to educational records,” Lehmann wrote. 

Hey hold on!

I don’t see anything in the Constitution that says anything about constitutional rights for parents. Maybe some laws can tell me where in the Constitution it says that?

SAU 70, the nation’s first interstate school district, is made up of three schools in Hanover, New Hampshire, and one — Marion Cross Elementary — in Norwich, Vermont. 

Do I see a split over this? It all depends now upon the courts and that could have a far reaching affects on schools around the U.S. including Connecticut where we have rules that do not allow schools to tell parents if their child is trans.

* The New Hampshire Valley News.

In 2015, a model policy called JBAB was issued by the New Hampshire School Boards Association. So far, 48 school districts or charter schools have adopted it, or a similar policy.