Opinion: Sununu signs transgender bills

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu waves while being introduced prior to his State of the State address at the State House, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu waves while being introduced prior to his State of the State address at the State House, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) Charles Krupa

By RICHARD BIRCHER

Published: 08-13-2024 5:00 PM

Richard Bircher lives in Lebanon.

With a sense of reassurance and respect, I praise Gov. Sununu’s signing of the two bills designed to clarify the biological essence of boys and girls (specifically), in distinction to the confusing and often indeterminable transgender category.

Concisely stated, New Hampshire public schools shall offer sports programs created for boys, girls, and an all-encompassing coed category, all of which will be determined by the child’s birth certificate or “other evidence.” The second bill bans “gender affirming surgeries for minors.”

That boys are apt to be larger and stronger than girls is secondary in relevance. Proponents of gender self-identification attempt to debunk science and biology using a series of run-on emotions as sufficient justification for allowing males to participate in female sports. Presently, the 2024 Paris Olympic Committee requires that transgender athletes must have completed their transition before the age of 12 to avoid unfair advantage. Even this requirement leaves a large gray area of ambiguity.

Given that a young person “identifies” with the opposite sex and gender is certainly their privilege. However, individuals and institutions are in no way obligated to codify these feelings into a contentious and highly questionable reality for the larger world to abide by.

NEA-NH president Megan Tuttle criticized the governor for vetoing the bill which, she claims, can “foster a sense of belonging that is so critical for young people to thrive.” As adults, we can be expected to protect our children as best we can from life’s many hazards. Which also includes protecting them from their adolescent selves.

To create a peculiar distortion of biology and human physiology in order to accommodate untested imaginations and then coerce the entire society to comply with such thinking is without justification. So too is allowing irreversible surgeries and hormone treatment, which has increasingly become the focus of likely long-term health consequences, equally negligent.

Self-understanding and reflection do not arrive with adolescence. True grounding arrives over time. Rather than promoting risks that can be permanent, the governor has shown himself an advocate for both scientific reasoning and adult reasonableness on personal and governmental levels.

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