New Hampshire trans bathroom ban bill includes threat of prison time
Those found in violation of the law could face up to $5,000 in fines. (Getty)
An anti-trans bathroom ban proposed in New Hampshire has been dubbed one of the most extreme in the country for threatening to jail those who violate it.
House Bill 1442 would punish individuals who access gendered facilities in a variety of public buildings that aren’t consistent with their gender assigned at birth with fines ranging up to $5,000 for each violation and even prison time if someone violated a resulting court injunction preventing them from using the bathroom.
The state law allows publicly-owned buildings, such as schools or government offices, to enforce rigid policies on single-sex facilities. Anyone who enters a bathroom inconsistent with the gender marker on their legal records would be fined under “wilful trespass” laws.
Introduced by 13 Republican lawmakers last week, it passed the first hurdle following a House vote of 181-164 on Wednesday (5 March) evening.
Three Republicans joined the 161 Democrats who voted against the legislation, while nine Republicans and six Democrats refused to vote. 31 lawmakers were absent.
The vote came just weeks after the state’s Republican governor Kelly Ayotte surprisingly vetoed a similar bill, SB268, which would have amended anti-discrimination laws to ban trans people from public spaces.
Ayotte vetoed the bill for the third time in February, saying it was virtually the same as a bill proposed earlier this year which she described as “overly broad” and “impractical.”
“I made it clear this issue needed to be addressed in a thoughtful, narrow way that protects the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters,” she said at the time.
Not only does the GOP’s latest attempt at a trans bathroom ban increase the severity of violations, it also establishes a definition of “biological sex” that would allow legislators to justify an array of harmful laws like sports bans or healthcare restrictions.
Erin Reed, a US-based legislative journalist, called HB 1442 “one of the most extreme bathroom bans moving through any state legislature in the country.”
She called on the New Hampshire Senate to vote against the bill in the follow-up vote set to happen later this month.
The risks associated with anti-trans bathroom bans go far beyond just the trans community, but threaten to target anyone who is seen as insufficiently feminine or masculine.
Several individuals, both cisgender and transgender, have reported being harassed for using bathrooms that, under state law, they had a right to use.
In August last year, Minnesota teenager Gerika Mudra, who is cisgender, said she was forced to expose her breasts after a woman inside a restaurant toilet began banging on the toilet stall door she had occupied, saying the “man needs to get out of here.”
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