CONCORD N.H. — For Rep. Alice Wade, the stakes of a bill regulating bathroom access are not trivial; they strike at the core of her identity.
Wade, a transgender Democratic lawmaker from Dover, took a moment ahead of a heated debate on LGBTQ+ rights to recall a conversation with a Republican voter whose child, a transgender man, died by suicide.
“I shared how overwhelming it can be for trans people to go through life in a society hostile to our very existence, and how transitioning managed to save my life six years ago,” Wade said to the chamber.
“… Long after he had left, I could not stop thinking about our conversation,” Wade said. “About a father just trying to understand his child and cope with his loss, and how much pain could be avoided if we didn’t treat trans people like political weapons.”
Her remarks were among several on the House floor Thursday ahead of the chamber’s vote to advance a bill that would unravel some parts of a state anti-discrimination law protecting transgender people.
Rep. Alice Wade, a Dover Democrat and a transgender lawmaker, speaks against House Bill 148, which would roll back some anti-discrimination protections for transgender lawmakers, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt/New Hampshire Bulletin)
House Bill 148, which passed the chamber 201-166, adds exceptions to the anti-discrimination law that permit businesses, organizations, and governmental entities to classify certain services by a person’s biological sex. The bill allows those entities to separate people by biological sex in bathrooms, locker rooms, athletic or sporting competitions, prisons, jails, juvenile detention centers, and mental health hospitals and treatment centers.
Republicans, nearly all of whom voted in favor of the bill, argued the exemptions are necessary to protect biological women in sensitive areas such as bathrooms and locker rooms. The law does not require businesses to separate bathrooms by biological sex, but those that do so will no longer be violating anti-discrimination laws.
Rep. Erica Layon, a Derry Republican, said the bill would support women who feel uncomfortable or threatened by transgender women in women’s spaces, raising the possibility of cisgender men taking advantage.
‘That’s a problem for the women that are exposed to genitalia they don’t want to see,” she said. “But perhaps even worse, this is a problem for transgendered people who may be victimized by people who are falsely claiming a transgender identity in order to get access to women.”
There is no evidence of a pattern of attacks by transgender women against cisgender women in bathrooms and locker rooms; some studies have found that transgender girls and women are more likely to be harmed by legislation barring their access to bathrooms of their gender identity.
A nearly identical version of the bill passed the House and Senate in 2024 but was vetoed by then-Gov. Chris Sununu.
This year’s bill follows a 2024 law requiring school districts to bar transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in grades five through 12. HB 148 would allow private sports leagues or teams to impose similar requirements on their own teams. Republicans said that would allow sports leagues to preserve fair conditions for women.
But LGBTQ+ rights groups and Democrats have condemned the proposed law as an attack on the rights of transgender people rooted in misconceptions and unfounded fears. Rep. Eric Turer, a Brentwood Democrat, said the bill would invite “discrimination, abuse, and confusion,” in part because it does not provide a definition of biological sex for businesses to follow.
“Allowing each person and every public or private organization in the state to adopt any standard it chooses is both irresponsible and dangerous,” he said. And he added the bill could require people to endure privacy violations to prove their biological sex.
Linds Jakows, co-founder of 603 Equality, an advocacy group, argued the real effect of the bill would be exclusion.
“It won’t be about protecting anybody,” Jakows said. “It’ll be entirely about trying to keep transgender and gender nonconforming people out of public life. … and trans and gender nonconforming people are loved and powerful and valuable members of our community.”
While most Democrats voted against the bill, two, Reps. Jonah Wheeler and Peter Leishman, both of Peterborough, voted in favor.
Wheeler, who gave a speech ahead of the vote, sparked strong emotions from fellow Democrats. As he spoke, about half of the Democratic caucus members walked out in protest.
“These conversations can be nuanced, and we can have conversations about treating each other with respect and humanity, and putting in place policies that say that women who were born women deserve a space to themselves, whether that be the bathroom or sports or the locker room or prisons, is not transphobic,” Wheeler said in his speech.
Wade agreed that more compassion was needed. But she said compassion should be extended to transgender people, and argued excluding them from spaces was not the answer.
“I think we need more of that willingness as a country, to speak honestly and seek to understand one another, to stop the vilification of our fellow citizens and to find common ground,” she said. “This bill does the exact opposite.”
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