New Hampshire House advances transgender bathroom bill, breaking with New England

In most of New England, the question of whether transgender people may use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity has largely been settled. In New Hampshire, lawmakers are reopening it.

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The Republican-controlled New Hampshire House voted 181–164 on Wednesday evening to pass House Bill 1442, legislation that would allow schools, government buildings, and some businesses to restrict bathrooms and locker rooms based on sex assigned at birth rather than gender identity. The bill now heads to the state Senate.

If enacted, the measure would place New Hampshire further out of step with the rest of the Northeast, where protections for trans residents in public accommodations remain broadly intact.

House Bill 1442 would require bathrooms and locker rooms in public schools and municipally owned buildings to be designated for male or female use based on sex. The bill also allows businesses and other places of public accommodation to require that multi-user restrooms be used according to what the legislation defines as a person’s “biological sex.”

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The proposal goes further than many similar measures elsewhere by creating a new legal mechanism tied to restroom use. Under the bill, entering an area designated for females while classified as male under the statute could be considered “willful trespass.”

The legislation also establishes a statutory definition of sex that centers on biological characteristics such as chromosomes and reproductive anatomy, stating that a person’s gender identity does not determine access to spaces designated for males or females.

Supporters argue the legislation protects privacy in intimate spaces. Opponents say it singles out transgender people for exclusion and undermines civil rights protections that the state adopted less than a decade ago.

The vote follows several years of legislative attempts to pass similar restrictions, which repeatedly ran into gubernatorial vetoes.

Weeks ago, Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, vetoed a comparable proposal that would have allowed transgender people to be excluded from bathrooms, locker rooms, jails, and other gender-segregated spaces. It was the third time in as many years that a New Hampshire governor rejected similar legislation.

Ayotte said the earlier proposal was overly broad and risked creating an exclusionary environment.

Her predecessor, Chris Sununu, who is also a Republican, vetoed a similar measure in 2024, writing that lawmakers were attempting to address problems “that have not presented themselves.”

Yet the issue has returned to the legislature year after year.

Advocates say the persistence reflects a broader campaign targeting transgender rights in the state. According to the advocacy group 603 Equality, several bills introduced during the current legislative session attempt to regulate public facilities based on what lawmakers describe as “biological sex,” part of a wider slate of proposals affecting bathrooms, sports participation, and identification documents.

The group says House Bill 1442 is among the most “sweeping and cruel” of those proposals.

In 2018, New Hampshire added gender identity to its nondiscrimination law, becoming the final state in New England to extend those protections. At the time, the move appeared to complete a regional consensus on LGBTQ+ equality.

In recent years, however, that consensus has begun to fracture.

Related: 21 states now limit transgender people’s bathroom use, with criminal penalties in two

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In 2025, Ayotte signed legislation banning gender-affirming medical care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors, making New Hampshire the first state in New England to enact such a restriction.

Neighboring states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, maintain broad protections for transgender residents across public accommodations and health care.

Even Maine, which, like New Hampshire, has long been politically competitive and regularly elects Republicans to statewide office, has not enacted comparable restrictions on transgender rights. Instead, Maine has become the focus of a separate political fight: a proposed ballot measure backed by national conservative donors that would bar transgender girls from school sports and require schools to separate bathrooms and locker rooms based on sex assigned at birth.

Advocates say such policies place transgender people in untenable situations, forcing them to choose between using facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or risking confrontation.