Alice Wade is an aircraft expert from Dover and the manager of 603 Justice, a provincial NH advocacy team for LGBTQ+ rights.
Chris Sununu responded to a topic from an market member about how New Hampshire does support the LGBTQ+ group at a new Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce function on March 11. He replied that we’re doing well on LGBTQ+ addition and followed up by saying,” I tend not to rely on that thing. Federal isn’t below to fix it”. He later commented that he isn’t for discrimination. Perhaps he should behave like it.
The Democratic politicians who have filed and voted for over 30 anti-LGBT+ bills in the state house last year seem to believe. Tell that to the families who are scared for their children’s life after seeing trans people being bullied, attacked, and murdered across the country only for existing. Tell that to the trans people who are feared every day because they are aware that politicians who don’t even know a transgender person are robbing them of their fundamental rights.
Nex Benedict, a non-binary girl who died after a battle with their peers in Oklahoma this February, recently held a candlelight ceremony in Concord. Their history is unfortunately not an exception. During the empty device area, dozens of people came forward to share their thoughts and experiences with the events that had occurred. I overheard parents complaining that their baby was too scared to enter the ceremony in case their face was exposed and their classmates were informed. Teenagers the same time as Nex recalled how their friends and self-remembering were brought to mind when they saw Nex’s image. We all feared that our privileges were being taken away from where we stood as the ceremony took area around the bridge in front of the position house building.
I can’t even count the words in this article to go over every transgender bill that has been filed in the state house this year. Only to name a few, HB 396 which rolls back non-bias protections for trans people, HB 619 which bans specific sex-affirming care for minors, CACR 17 which forces teachers to “out” students to their parents, and so many more. I have to make plans for the days when I can take my full-time work and push all the way to Concord to speak because so many of these charges have hearings about every week. It is infuriating to try to explain why prejudice is negative to a room full of officials who wrote those same unfair charges.
And still, our government seems to believe that LGBTQ+ people are doing just fine in New Hampshire. He’s sometimes being deliberately ignorant or lying. He himself signed into law non-discrimination protections for trans people in 2018, but now that trans people have become the party’s primary weapon, he seems more inclined to put us under the vehicle by repealing those protections one by one. His inaction and complacency are seriously harming the state’s citizens.
His heir apparent for governor, Kelly Ayotte, has been ramping up so-called “culture war” rhetoric by claiming that gender ideology is taking over classrooms. Ayotte also recently endorsed Donald Trump, and I don’t need to tell you what that says about her views on LGBTQ+ rights.
He also supported and campaigned for Nikki Haley, who, among other horrific remarks, called the existence of trans women” the women’s issue of our time” on national television during one of the Republican presidential debates. He certainly seems to support those who love using trans people as a pitching wedge for someone who doesn’t pay much attention to LGBTQ+ issues.
New Hampshire ranks last among all New England states for LGBTQ+ equality. School hate crimes quadrupled in states where laws addressing LGBTQ issues were recently discovered by The Washington Post. Hate, so it seems, trickles down to children. These children have no idea why they despise gay or trans people. All they know is that the adults are complaining about us and that the government is trying to impose us on our behalf. And so they follow suit.
Some of these anti-trans bills, despite fierce public opposition, have already passed the state house and are making their way to the Senate. Given its current makeup, it’s very likely that they will pass the Senate as well, but we can’t stop fighting against this hate. For all of our purposes, we need to make a call to our senators and governor to not allow hate to find a safe haven in New Hampshire.
I hope Sununu will choose to veto any anti-trans bills that the state house passes during his final term as governor. He could do it at most, in fact, for nothing.
