LGBTQ+ Rights

New Hampshire families filed a lawsuit to stop a new rule that would end medical care for some transgender young people in low-income families

SB 434 is yet another bill to restrict speech and censor content in schools

Law would have forced K-12 public school educators and public and private colleges and universities to guess what was prohibited or risk loss of funding

The bill would have drastically rolled back critical nondiscrimination protections for transgender people

On October 1, 2026, GLAD Law, the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, and the ACLU of New Hampshire filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to stop the Trump administration from enforcing a rule against our clients that will take medical care away from transgender youth in low-income families. The rule was issued in August 2026 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Effective October 13, 2026, it cuts off federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for medications and other treatment for gender dysphoria for young people. The ban applies even when a patient’s own doctor has determined the care is medically necessary. We are filing on behalf of four New Hampshire teenagers and their families. These are kids who are already in treatment. Their families made these medical decisions with their doctors, based on careful assessment of their children’s medical needs. But, on October 13, the Trump administration plans to pull the funding for these kids’ health care mid-treatment, with no plan for what happens to them.  Stopping treatment abruptly, against the judgment of these children’s own parents and doctors, will hurt these kids. Not only is this rule cruel, but it is also illegal. Congress created the Medicaid program 50 years ago, and the regulations governing Medicaid say that it can’t deny a covered service because of a patient’s diagnosis. But that’s exactly what this rule does. More than 90% of the public comments submitted about this rule opposed it. The law says the government must engage with this evidence, not wave it away, before implementing any new regulation. But the Trump administration ignored both the people’s voice and the law, and forged ahead anyway.

On August 7, 2025, a diverse group of educators and advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new anti-equity, anti-inclusion, and anti-diversity law in New Hampshire, which became effective on July 1, 2025, after being signed into law by Governor Ayotte in late June. The law, contained within House Bill 2’s budget provisions, seeks to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs pertaining to race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in New Hampshire schools (including both K-12 public schools as well as both public and private colleges and universities) and public entities like police departments and libraries. This law radically contradicts federal civil rights laws that protect the rights of students with disabilities, violates the First Amendment rights of educators and students, and is vague and ambiguous under the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions. The lawsuit was brought by the state’s largest educator union, National Education Association – New Hampshire (NEA-NH), four school districts (Oyster River Cooperative School District, the Dover School District, the Somersworth School District, and the Grantham School District), trainer and consultant for diversity, equity, and inclusion James M. McKim, Jr., diversity, equity, and inclusion administrator and psychology professor Dottie Morris, and New Hampshire Outright, a nonprofit that provides training in public schools and entities on creating environments of inclusion and belonging for LGBTQ+ students. They are represented by lawyers from a broad coalition of organizations and law firms, including the ACLU of New Hampshire, the national ACLU’s Disability Rights Program and Racial Justice Program, National Education Association-New Hampshire (NEA-NH), GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), and Drummond Woodsum & MacMahon. The law does not just seek to prohibit diversity, equity, and inclusion in public entities and public schools, but it also seeks to strip away millions of dollars in critical state (and possibly federal) public funding if K-12 public school districts guess wrong as to how the New Hampshire Department of Education interprets the vague law’s provisions. According to one estimate, state aid to school districts could amount to more than $1 billion annually. The law is already arbitrarily and selectively being enforced by the state Department of Education, which is aggressively applying it to private (including religious) colleges and universities that receive student scholarship funds through state grant aid programs (like UNIQUE Program state grants and the Governor’s Scholarship), but apparently not private K-12 schools (including religious schools) that receive public funds through Education Freedom Accounts. The law also applies to private colleges and universities (for example, Dartmouth College, Southern New Hampshire University, and Saint Anselm College) that receive any form of state funding, including those that receive state scholarship grants that help New Hampshire residents attend these colleges. The lawsuit also raises concerns about how this law could impact school districts’ federally-mandated collection of demographic data, including racial and ethnic groups, in New Hampshire. As the law was still making its way through the legislative process, disability rights advocates expressed clear concerns that essential services, programs, and trainings aimed at helping the lives of people with disabilities could be dismantled by the law. The legislature failed to address these concerns in the final bill language that was ultimately signed into law. This lawsuit follows several others filed in New Hampshire challenging anti-equity practices in education, including a 2021 lawsuit against a classroom censorship law that was struck down in federal court in May 2024, and one lawsuit filed on March 5, 2025 in New Hampshire by the ACLU of New Hampshire, national ACLU, NEA, and NEA-NH against the U.S. Department of Education. These practices were halted by the court in April 2024. On September 4, 2025, the Court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining enforcement of the law until September 18. The temporary restraining order covers the four plaintiff school districts (Oyster River Cooperative School District, Dover School District, Somersworth School District, and the Grantham School District), as well as any other “public school” defined under the law (which includes colleges and universities) that employs, contracts with, or works with plaintiffs NEA-NH or its members, consultant and trainer James T. McKim, educator Dottie Morris, or New Hampshire Outright. The order also covers any other public school district that provides services to a student of the four plaintiff school districts under civil rights laws protecting students with disabilities. On October 2, 2025, the Court issued a preliminary injunction order with the same scope of relief, and which will last while the case proceeds. The Court explained: “The breadth of the anti-DEI laws’ prohibition is startling. The definition of ‘DEI’ contained therein is so far-reaching that it prohibits long-accepted—even legally required—teaching and administrative practices. It is hard to imagine how schools could continue to operate at even a basic level if the laws’ prohibitions were enforced to their full extent.” On May 20, 2026, Plaintiffs filed their motion for summary judgment seeking final judgment in the case.