Senate Judiciary Committee, Wednesday, February 11, 2026
As many of you are likely aware, there have been several bills over the last three years seeking to address the same underlying issue that SB 552 addresses. Three of those bills have been advanced to the desk of two different governors. Both have vetoed them.
It is worth noting that each time the governor vetoes one of these bills, it receives more public attention. The most recent veto generated significant coverage, with headlines noting that the governor vetoed a bill that would have allowed biological-sex separation in locker rooms, prisons, and bathrooms.
Polling on this issue is overwhelmingly favorable to allowing sex-based distinctions. The primary reason these vetoes have not yet carried political consequence is that many people simply are not aware of them. New Hampshire has limited media coverage and limited civil-society engagement, but that changes with repetition. Each veto creates a clearer public record and brings this issue further into the democratic process.
SB 552, as introduced — which simply clarifies that using biological sex is allowed — was already so moderate that, even ten years ago, it would have sounded almost like satire rather than a serious legislative dispute.
Senator Avard’s bill is, in our view, the most legally sound of the biological-sex bills before the legislature this term. It is carefully drafted as an allowance bill, not a mandate. Yet repeated vetoes of even this narrow and restrained approach effectively amount to forcing the integration of intimate spaces based on gender identity.
That position is increasingly out of step with the majority of the public. The more often it is repeated, the clearer — and more unpopular — it becomes.