There are two concerning bills heading to the Senate Floor. Let our Senators know how strongly you feel about them!

SB464 changes the standard for civil rights enforcement, adding language that creates a new threshold of motivation for those committing civil rights infringements. That threshold in turn creates an additional burden on prosecutors pursing action against those who have committed civil rights offenses. This weakens the ability to apply civil rights protections and enforcement within the state. The legal ramifications of changing this one sentence in existing state statute will have wide-sweeping implications for those seeking justice within one of the protected classes outline in existing law.

SB459 is another discriminatory bill, banning access on the basis of what legislators are classifying as “biological sex” to spaces like locker rooms and segregation on the same flawed understanding of biology in prisons.

We need to stop SB464 and SB459.

Why this matters:

Legislation like this is divisive and discriminatory. These kinds of identity politics are being prioritized over solving real issues facing Granite Staters. Our trans community is being unfairly targeted and singled out by a vocal political minority who wants to sow fear in our state. Trans people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and should be allowed to participate fully in public life.

This legislation makes us all less safe. Safety is important to all of us. SB464 weakens protections to enforce civil-rights laws, and SB459 expands the scope of acceptable discrimination. Rolling back civil rights protections makes us all less safe. It opens doors for discrimination of all types. Enforcement of these bills creates safety concerns for all.

Legislation like this is redundant and unenforceable. There are already safety and privacy laws meant to protect all people. We don’t need locker room bans to keep us safe, and we don’t need legislators trying to relitigate the same failed and unenforceable policies again and again. We’ve already seen in other states that these types of bans are widely unenforceable, and we’ve seen in our own state two different Republican governors say NO to bathroom and locker room bans and the attempt to segregate spaces on the basis of a middle-school understanding of biology.