GOP Gov. blasts party for "trying the same thing" after she vetoes anti-trans bill for 3rd timehttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/06/gop-gov-blasts-party-for-trying-the-same-thing-after-she-vetoes-anti-trans-bill-for-3rd-time/ 🔗Daniel Villarreal (23 June 2026)
New Hampshire's Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte vetoed a bill last Friday that would have banned transgender people from restrooms, locker rooms, jails, and sports teams that match their gender identities. It's the third such bill she has vetoed in the last year, and Republican legislators are unlikely to override her, as they lack the two-thirds majority needed to do so.
The bill, S.B. 552, would have carved out an exception in the state's 2018 anti-discrimination law – which explicitly includes gender identity – to allow schools, businesses, organizations, and government agencies to discriminate against trans and nonbinary individuals by trying to determine the sex they were assigned at birth.
"I have continued to ask the Legislature to address this issue in a thoughtful, narrow way while protecting the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters," Ayotte said in a statement Friday afternoon, according to NHPR. "Unfortunately, there is minimal difference between this bill, the bill I vetoed earlier this year, the one I vetoed last year, and the one vetoed in 2024 by Governor [Chris] Sununu. Trying the same thing again isn't going to get a different result."
The broadly written bill neither explained how the law would be enforced nor provided any special penalties for violating it. As such, enforcement would have likely depended on individuals filing complaints if they shared a facility with a trans person, leaving state legal authorities to investigate and prosecute such claims.
