YOUR COMMENTS

Senator's Cilley, Lasky, and especially Sen. Martha Fuller Clark you should be ashamed of yourselves. If you believed in this bill and honestly thought this was what your constituents wanted, you should have voted in favor of it. YOU three are disgaceful. First you do not have the backbone to vote for what you believe to be right, and then you have the nerve to criticize! That is two-faced and insults our state. This WAS a stupid bill, and I am glad to see it was defeated, but for you three to spout off when you yourselves vote against it is politics at its worse. Grow a spine or get the heck out of the Senate!
- Brian, Manchester (currently Iraq)

Would legislating this stop anything? Not really. Would it provide anything? Not really. It's all just pontificated blathering, really. Regardless of what laws are in place and why, people will always act according to their conscience... dwell in the guilt they reap from going against their nature.

Not to get "religious" here... (especially given that I'm a post-op transsexual myself), but I've always looked at it the way Jesus was credited as saying, "Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet." Matthew 10:14.

I think that's a much better idea than forcing everyone to live with each other if they don't want to. Everyone will eventually find their community and their home... some of us will just have to look harder than others to find it.
- Jenna, Port St. Lucie, FL

M. Rho--Just for the record, you have it backwards:"Transgender" can refer to anyone of varied gender identity or expression--it's a blanket term. "transsexual" refers to people who have had or are going to have GRS (genital re-assignment surgery).
- Susan_F, Pullman WA

Wow:

So Senator Janeway's wife testified that they have a daughter who is transgengering, and at the time he supported the bill, but now he voted against his own daughterson??

Sad how politics can make people not really stand up for what they beleive in.
- John, Concord

This whole notion of laws that "protect" certain people is high-foolishness. This is grander and much more insidious than the Seatbelt Bill. This is BigBro trying to tell us what to do and say and think and act. Try that with me and you'll get my boot.
- Biff, Canterbury

"If you are a transsexual, don't you get your state issued ID under the sex you are transitioning to?"

No, you do not. You generally have to have already had surgery (Which you are required to cross-live for 2 years to qualify for). So, no, they will not have the proper gender on their ID. They may have the right name, but not gender.
- Rachel Owens, Bothell WA

I wonder if there's a bill coming to help me. I am a high school student who is left handed. I write with my left hand, throw a ball, open doors etc. I find it discriminating that there are hardly any left handed desks in my school. I must sit at a desk made for right handed people for all my classes. Imagine, I have to write and take tests all day on a right handed desk, boy does my arm ache. Can I sue someone for physical damages? Also, almost all the doors in my school are right naded doors, what's up with that??? Since just about 10% of the population is right handed, I find this very discriminating. I want equal justice for LEFTIES.
Lefties of the world...UNITE.
- John, Hudson

Next topic: Performing surgery on a person in order to change physical sexual characteristics should be a felony. Yes or no?

Doctors are surgery happy. It is insane enough that people who can't put down the oreos get to choose to have stomach surgery to make them do what they ought to do by themselves. Agreeing to change a person's body on the basis of some lust to be what you are not is just medicine gone wild. Keep in mind frontal lobotomies and other insane ideas. The medical profession is out of control. This is not Sweden.
- Bob, Nashua

While I am a strong Dem and a strong supporter of LGBT rights (while not one myself), I think this bill needs to be re-examined. Yes, I believe all people deserve to have the same rights, regardless of their sexual orientation or relation to either the male or female sex. If I were a transexual, I would want these rights. *However* transgender vs. transexual are two VERY different things. Transexual is what those of you who have used the term "cross-dressing" are referring to. Transgender is choosing to have the operation to become the opposite sex. I believe that if an individual is transgender, they definitely should have all the rights, including the right to use the bathroom of the sex they choose. BUT if the individual is merely relating to the opposite sex and dressing in that way, I don't believe they should be allowed to the same rights because not making the commitment to the operation means that they are still sexually confused. In turn, this could lead to some very horrible outcomes. Let's support transGENDER, not tranSEXUAL individuals.
- M. Rho, Hanover, NH

Personally, I don't interact with others in a public bathroom. I ignore them. In fact if bathrooms were mixed gender I do not think it would change my use of those facilities.

What you usually run into that is discomforting is a man in the mens room acting strangely, say hanging around. Hanging a guilt trip on the fringe weirdos seems to miss the point.

Tomorrow, when a man in woman's clothes uses the stall next to you, you likely won't even know it.
- Fanny, Durham

Sick world we live in. It'll only get worse as time goes on. Glad I'm at the age I'm at, I couldn't face more weirder challenges then this.
- Don, Manchester

Jay in Laconia. It would have protected a guy in a ladies room even if he was not a cross dresser, all he would have to say is he identified as a woman. They did the right thing by killing this bill. It was a wast of resources to begin with.
- BuzzinNH, Brookline

If you are a transsexual, don't you get your state issued ID under the sex you are transitioning to? If so use that bathroom, or sex for your housing/employment information.
- Jay, Manchester

What shame this state has brought on itself in not defending and upholding the civil rights of every person! Live Free or Die? What a joke.
- Rob, Concord

Kelly, your comment disgusts me. The fact that the bill did not pass does not make you any safer. Sexual predators were used as a scare tactic to kill the bill in order to justify discrimination. Transgendered people are not a special interest group. They are a community of misunderstood individuals who deserve to be protected under the law. The idea that this would give predators a loophole in court is bogus. Any psychologist would be able to distinguish between a sexual predator and someone whose gender identity does not match up with their anatomy. So to answer your question, yes, shame on you.
- Lance, Pittsfield

Are they - in effect - saying "how dare they cause me to vote against a Bill I'm in staunch support of"??!?!?!?!

Is anyone buying this?

24-0 - doesn't that mean that NO ONE supported it?!
- DennisInNH, Milford, NH

All anyone wants is to be able to work, to be able to live, to be able to use the facilities that are appropriate for that person. All anyone wants are the inaliable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. One day the human race may grow to be compassionate instead of so fearful and distrustful, learn to be more christ-like and not so righteous.
- susan collins, Jenkintown PA

"Passing the bill now would only worsen the situation for transsexuals because of the way the bill was portrayed, she said."

So in other words, you don't have the courage to vote your convictions. You know full well that the vast majority of the people oppose this bill, and you know the Republicans will use it against you if you vote for it.

So you chickened out to save your own political hide. Shame on you, Democrat senators. At least the Republicans voted their conscience; according to your own statements, you don't. I hope that the transgender community sees you all for the spineless politicians you are.
- Brian Wright, Manchester, NH

Still amazed that this was even being heard and wasting the time of everyone involved, but thrilled to know I won't have to deal with the uncomfortable feeling of going to the bathroom next to a man that used to be a woman.
- Bill, Manchester

Unless these people have had an operation we are talking about crossdressing here......get it ! Any guy in the mood to throw on a dress can get into a women's bathroom. Funny to see these worthless Democrats up there complaining about a situation they put themelves in.
- Jay Collins, Laconia

So when is the second vote where it passes 13-11?
- Mark, Amherst

Shame on us, Sen. Jacalyn Cilley? Shame on you and your cohorts for voting for legislation that would put the women and children of our state at such risk from sexual predators! Once again, if you don't agree with the Lefties, out come the labels. I for one, will sleep much better tonight knowing that at least some of our State Legislators have everyone's best interest at heart, not those of some special interest group.
- Kelly, Chester

Yup, the Democrats attacked the Republicans for opposing this "bill" and then, not one of them had the guts to vote for it. Now how's that for Hope and Change? What a bunch of hacks, they don't know the meaning of the word integrity.
- mo, derry

Thank God this stupid bill didn't pass. No way can they take this seriously.
- Amy, Goffstown