Hanan Bedri, MS, MA, is the executive director of New Hampshire Public Health Association. Gerri Cannon is a NH state representative.

On the docket this legislative session is a bill (HB 368) meant to secure the privacy of anyone who comes to the Granite State from elsewhere in the U.S. seeking gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental healthcare. This healthcare includes medical interventions meant to align a patient’s appearance or physical body with their gender identity; measures taken to alleviate symptoms of distress due to gender dysphoria; and treatments that suppress the development of endogenous secondary sex characteristics.

If a patient comes from out of state to New Hampshire, to avoid civil actions initiated in another state, this legislation will guarantee their privacy.

Those who seek gender-affirming care are some of the most vulnerable and imperiled among us. Studies have shown that 82 percent of transgender people have considered suicide, and 40 percent have attempted it, with these risks at their highest among transgender youth. Transgender people experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment than others, due to workplace discrimination, and they face higher rates of homelessness than others as well.

Gender-affirming treatments have a proven record of alleviating some of this hardship. A recent study showed that receiving gender-affirming healthcare was associated with 60 percent lower odds of depression and a decrease of 73 percent in the odds of experiencing suicidal ideation. Surgeries comprise just a narrow range of options in place for gender-affirming healthcare, but a study from Harvard Medical School found that those who received gender-affirming surgery had a 42 percent reduction in the odds of facing psychological distress and a 44 percent reduction in the odds of suicidal ideation.

In short, gender-affirming healthcare and gender-affirming mental healthcare are beneficial to those who receive it, and these interventions have been approved by credible authorities like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, and still others. Anyone under eighteen who seeks these medical interventions must have parental consent, and gender-affirming mental healthcare is recommended to accompany physical healthcare so that both parents and young patients fully understand all benefits and risks of gender-affirming interventions.

Despite the good that is being done through gender-affirming healthcare, laws are being passed elsewhere in the U.S. that seek to limit patients’ access to it. Attempts are being made to discourage patients from seeking that care, and one way that is accomplished is to pass laws that empower actors from out of state to bypass patients’ right to privacy.

In addition to reinforcing patients’ privacy, the bill is meant to ensure that children shall not be taken from parents who have allowed them to benefit from gender-affirming healthcare. If a law in another state authorizes an agency to remove a child from a parent or guardian in another state on those grounds, this bill will prevent anyone from achieving that aim in New Hampshire. No child should be forcibly removed from their parents simply because those parents have permitted their children access to the healthcare they require.

This measure would ensure that we maintain the integrity and cohesion of families across the Granite State and that we not allow them to be dismantled on the grounds that children have been given needed medical attention with their parents’ blessing.

The legislation does take into account the possibility that youths in need of gender-affirming care may be victims of domestic violence. The bill contains language clarifying that if a child in this situation has been subject to domestic abuse, an intervention can be made to separate them from their parents. This is a necessary measure. Transgender and gender-nonconforming people, adults and children, are more than four times likelier than others to be the victims of violent crime.

According to the 2015 US Transgender Survey, nearly half of all respondents were sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, with one in ten sexually assaulted in the last year. More than half of the respondents experienced intimate partner violence. Data is limited when it comes to domestic abuse inflicted by parents or guardians on children, but the plain reality is that transgender youth are among the most vulnerable people in our society. This new legislation seeks to guarantee their safety, by allowing for their removal from family members who pose a threat to them.

This bill, which will be considered in Concord this legislative session, is a protective measure meant to shield the privacy, family cohesion, and physical safety of those in need of gender-affirming healthcare who are facing civil actions from other states. The least we can do for those who come to the Granite Stater for the sake of their health and safety is to take the modest measures lain out in this legislation and vote ought to pass.

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