For Amy Manzelli and Chad Turmelle, the results of the November election were more than just numbers on the television — they were a signal that the world around them was shifting in ways that threatened their family’s safety and dignity.
They realized then they would have to leave the home they loved in Pembroke, New Hampshire, and find a place where their children — especially their 15-year-old daughter, Iris Turmelle, a transgender teen — could grow up without facing discrimination.
That place, their new home, is now Maine.
“We did not want to,” Manzelli said, her voice breaking as she sat with her husband on Thursday in the kitchen of their new home. “It’s been one of the hardest things that our family has ever had to do. It’s been a strain on, I mean, every aspect of our lives — financial, social work, parenting.”
Donald Trump’s election as president had been a disappointment to the parents, but what upset them even more was watching New Hampshire, the place where they had built their lives, hand over majority control of its legislature to Republicans.
Manzelli said she feared that shift would open the door to more laws restricting transgender people’s rights in New Hampshire.
On Aug. 1, when Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed into law a ban on medical procedures that alter or affirm the gender identity of anyone under 18, Turmelle and Manzelli said they felt more certain than ever that leaving New Hampshire was the right decision.
The law prohibits hormone therapy and puberty blockers for minors, but it includes one exception: Any individual who began treatment before Jan. 1, 2026, the date the law goes into effect, may continue without penalty.
On paper, the law doesn’t affect Iris, who started treatment back in 2021.
Manzelli said that even though the law doesn’t impact her daughter’s care now, she “totally disagrees” with the notion that her daughter wasn’t affected by the way the law progressed through the legislature.
“The earlier versions of that law did not have an exception for folks who were already receiving gender affirming care,” Manzelli said. “It’s possible that a new version of that law is going to be proposed and passed that will not have that exception.”
Another law passed this year bans gender-affirming chest surgeries for minors.
Several other bills centered on transgender people came up during this year’s legislative session, including one that would have let businesses and organizations separate people by biological sex in bathrooms, locker rooms, sports events and even places like jails and mental health facilities.
But Ayotte vetoed that bill.
“It takes away some of their rights and really just seeks to deny that transgender people are valid,” Manzelli said.
Manzelli and Turmelle went back and forth on whether to sell or rent their Pembroke home, which they have owned since 2006. They ultimately chose to sell, feeling it would be too emotionally challenging to keep it.
The house is marked by a 20-year-old asparagus patch and a 14,000-pound slate patio they painstakingly installed by hand. Beyond the house they poured their hearts into, the family also left behind friends and relatives.
What was once an eight-minute drive to see grandparents, cousins and loved ones will now become a journey of more than an hour and a half for the family who left New Hampshire in July.
Manzelli said the children did not take the move well.
“They’re still very upset about it,” she said.
The chickens from the family’s backyard, which Iris loves to pick up and hold, provide a minor comfort. They were able to make the move to Maine alongside the family.
Fight continues
Last year, the state passed a law banning transgender girls in grades 9 through 12 from participating in school sports teams designated for “females,” “women” or “girls.”
Since then, Iris, along with 16-year-old Parker Tirrell from Plymouth, has been challenging the law in a federal lawsuit.
This year, they took their fight a step further, expanding the lawsuit to also target Trump, seeking to block his executive order that withholds federal funding from schools allowing transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams.
Even though her family now lives in Maine, Manzelli said they intend to continue the fight.
“We don’t plan to back out of the lawsuit,” she said. “If anything, we feel like this just shows how badly these laws affect, both executive orders and New Hampshire state laws, affect transgender youth in New Hampshire, including our daughter.”
Neither Manzelli nor Turmelle had to change jobs after the move. Manzelli will continue serving as the managing attorney at BCM Environmental & Land Law.
While they will miss New Hampshire, Manzelli said they are making an effort to focus on the bright side: their new home is slightly larger, offering more space to spread out, and the yard is a bit bigger. They are also closer to the ocean now.
Above all, Manzelli said, “The current policies in Maine are just overall more aligned with our way of thinking, and that feels great.”