New Hampshire blocks transgender procedures for minors with new laws

In what New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte said is an effort to “protect children,” the state is doubling down on restrictions on transgender procedures for minors.

Ayotte last week signed into law two bills – HB 377, which would block doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to minors, and HB 712, which further restricts gender and breast surgeries for minors.

“Medical decisions made at a young age can carry lifelong consequences, and these bills represent a balanced, bipartisan effort to protect children,” Ayotte said in a statement. 

State Rep. Lisa Mazur, the lead sponsor of the bills, said on X the measures will protect children from “irreversible harm” and noted New Hampshire is the first state in the Northeast to ban the procedures for minors.  

Despite the new laws, which are set to go into effect in January, transgender advocates appear to be undeterred. The Campaign for Southern Equality, working along with 603 Equality, launched a New Hampshire project to supply up to $2,000 a year in travel grants for minors to leave the state for transgender procedures.  

Reacting to the travel grants on X, Mazur said the groups were “aiding and abetting child abuse.” 

The issue of transgender procedures for minors has gained national attention as more than two dozen states across the country have banned or limited it, sparking a slew of lawsuits. The Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on the topic in June, upholding a Tennessee law that prohibits gender-transition procedures for minors. The court’s ruling prompted it to toss a handful of other transgender-related cases back to the lower courts, as The Lion reported, ordering a fresh review in light of its Tennessee decision. 

President Donald Trump has been outspoken in his opposition to transgender procedures for minors, signing an executive order that banned the government from any effort to “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.” 

“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” the executive order noted. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.” 

The order added that “countless” minors quickly regret “that they have been mutilated,” with some never able to conceive children or breastfeed. “Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.” 

The political and legal battle over transgender procedures for minors shows no signs of slowing. Sixteen Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., sued the Trump administration on Aug. 1 over the executive order and other actions that the states view as illegally targeting transgender people.