Opinion: Making our LGBTQ+ children safe in New Hampshire

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By LAURA TELERSKI

Published: 07-26-2024 5:00 PM

Rep. Laura Telerski represents Nashua Ward 8, serves as Democratic Advisor to House Democratic Leader Rep. Matt Wilhelm and is the Chair of the House Democratic Victory Campaign Committee.

‘How can I tell her it will be okay?” said Sara Tirrell, mom of a transgender teen, in a press conference just days after Gov. Sununu signed a brutal package of conservative legislation targeting LGBTQ+ youth.

As a mom of three myself, her words naturally moved me, but as a mom of an LGBTQ+ child and as a state legislator, her question gutted me. In a nation and a state plagued with growing legislative extremism, how can any of us promise our LGBTQ+ children that they will be safe to be who they are, now and in the future?

In 2024, no parent should dread that our child’s identity, health care, and safety at school will be targeted by the law. The grim reality is that last year, for the first time ever, the Human Rights Campaign, the leading LGBTQ+ civil rights group, issued a nationwide state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans following an unprecedented amount of state legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people.

This package of hateful legislation is a nightmare for those of us who are parents of an LGBTQ+ child and have feared this day from the moment they bravely came out to us. Like most parents, we worry endlessly about our kids. When the house is quiet, we lay awake at night wondering if we made the right choices – if we really did all we could to set them up for success in a changing world.

But, uniquely, as the parents of LGBTQ+ kids, we also worry that they might be the victim of bullying, harassment, violence or be ostracized from their community solely because of who they might have a crush on, what name or pronoun they use, or if they simply want to play soccer with a team of their friends and peers.

What’s worse is that we also fear that our elected leaders won’t have our backs in sharing this burden and protecting our children’s most basic rights and freedoms.

While dozens of states across the country in recent years have advanced bills to prohibit even referencing LGBTQ+ people in the classroom, I never thought in the Live Free or Die state a group of people would actually have their rights taken away.

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In fact, before last week, a New Hampshire governor had not signed an anti-LGBTQ+ law since the 1980s, which banned gay and lesbian individuals and couples from adopting and fostering children (and was repealed in 1999).

As a legislator, it has been disturbing to watch my colleagues across the aisle advance bills that attack the very existence of the LGBTQ+ community. Bills that remove transgender girls from their beloved sports teams and force all girls to potentially undergo genital inspections, bills that re-classify references to LGBTQ+ identity in curriculum as “objectionable material,” and bills that prohibit New Hampshire doctors from providing essential health care for transgender people.

As a mom, seeing these bills become law was nearly unbearable. My child’s very existence and being is not “objectionable.”

To other Granite State parents of LGBTQ+ kids, I ache with you as I watch our beautiful state succumb to right-wing culture wars and misplaced moral panic. I worry with you about our children’s safety and liberty in the classroom, on the field, and in the doctor’s office. I struggle with you in your anguish wondering where we possibly go from here. I stand up with you in demanding our leaders do better.

I promise to stay in the fight until Sara, myself, and every Granite Stater can confidently tell our children they are safe here, and it will be okay.