Letter to New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu re: HB396

Sent July 6, 2024

Dear Governor Sununu,

On behalf of the New Hampshire chapter of New England Women’s Solidarity, we urge you to sign into law HB396: Permitting classification of individuals based on biological sex under certain limited circumstances.

Women and girls have a right to our own spaces where we are particularly vulnerable, such as school locker rooms and women’s prisons, for the sake of both our dignity and safety. In addition, female athletes deserve their own sports without having to compete against those with the significant speed and strength advantages conferred by male puberty. Over twenty peer-reviewed studies have now definitively established that these advantages cannot be reversed with cross-sex hormones.

HB 396 will not require any organization, institution or venue to establish separate facilities or sports according to biological sex. It will merely protect those that choose to do so.

There is a real conflict between the rights of women and the demands of trans activists. Schoolgirls have been accused of bigotry for stating that they are uncomfortable being made to undress beside male bodies in their school locker rooms because those males say they identify as girls and only what they want matters.  Nearly every day, another female athlete is robbed of honors and opportunities that she has earned because she had to compete against male athletes with unfair physical advantages. There have been multiple cases in recent years of women in US prisons being sexually assaulted by male inmates who identified as women and subsequently secured transfers to women’s prisons.

As a feminist organization, New England Women’s Solidarity encourages you to prioritize the rights of women and girls in New Hampshire by signing HB396.