New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte has once again vetoed a bill that would prevent biological males from using women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
Ayotte refused to sign the bill, arguing that it would be too hard to enforce, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte vetoed Senate Bill 268 Friday, a bill to allow transgender people to be excluded from restrooms, locker rooms, jails, and other spaces that don’t match their sex at birth.
“I vetoed a nearly identical bill to this one last year,” Ayotte, a Republican, said in a statement announcing the veto. “I made it clear this issue needed to be addressed in a thoughtful, narrow way that protects the privacy, safety, and rights of all Granite Staters. Unfortunately, there is minimal difference between Senate Bill 268 and the bill I vetoed last year, which Governor Sununu vetoed the year prior.”
Like 2025’s House Bill 148 and 2024’s House Bill 396, the Republican-backed SB 268 sought to create exceptions to the state’s antidiscrimination law, which was enacted in 2018 and protects people from discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” and other characteristics. In addition to allowing businesses and organizations to separate restrooms, locker rooms, and jails by sex at birth rather than self-expressed gender identity, the bills would’ve allowed schools to keep transgender girls off boys sports teams and vice versa.
In 2025, Ayotte endorsed some of the conservative lawmakers’ goals, but ultimately vetoed the legislation on the grounds that it was impractical.
“I believe there are important and legitimate privacy and safety concerns raised by biological males using places such as female locker rooms and being placed in female correctional facilities,” Ayotte wrote at the time. “At the same time, I see that House Bill 148 is overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte has again vetoed a bill that would allow transgender people to be excluded from restrooms and other spaces that don’t match their sex at birth.
— NH Public Radio (@nhpr) February 10, 2026
She rejected a similar bill last year, calling it "overly broad and impractical to enforce." https://t.co/ceVC0a9Lp1
The bill would have added a new section to the state’s anti-discrimination law that would have recognized the reality of biological sex. It would establish that in “certain limited circumstances” it is not unlawful to “classify based on biological sex” for “the construction, maintenance, operation, and use of lavatory facilities or locker rooms designed for usage by multiple persons at the same time,” and for “athletic or sporting events or competitions in a sport or similar activity in which physical strength, speed, or endurance is generally recognized to give an advantage to biological males.”
The measure would have also applied to “the operation, maintenance, and use of facilities designed for usage as prisons, houses of correction, juvenile detention or commitment centers, mental health hospitals or treatment centers, and like facilities to which persons may be committed involuntarily.”
Former Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a similar measure in 2024, despite strong Republican support in the state legislature. He argued that the legislation “seeks to solve problems that have not presented themselves in New Hampshire.”
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