Abi and Jacob Maxwell had decided New Hampshire was no longer a place they could raise their transgender daughter even before Republican Governor Chris Sununu signed a trio of bills in July placing restrictions on LGBTQ+ people, their health care, and education. Since 2020, the Maxwells watched as more bills were introduced that would reshape their daughter’s day-to-day life, from her ability to play sports or access gender affirming care. “We knew what was coming and that even if the governor didn’t sign the bills this year, they would all come back next year,” Abi Maxwell, 44, said.
“It was taking years off our lives and we knew we had to get out.” Her husband Jacob Maxwell agreed. He said his thought was: “Let’s go as far away as we can, into the absolute most protective place, no matter the cost.
” Advertisement In July, Maxwell and her family uprooted their lives, moving across the country to California, the state she now believes offers the strongest legal protections to her 11-year-old daughter. Since 2004, California has had a law prohibiting discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming people, according to the Transgender Law Center . While New Hampshire passed a law in 2018 to protect transgender people from discrimination, in recent years, bills targeting transgender youth have multiplied in New Hampshire and nationally as it’s become a hot-button political issue.
In 2024, there were 18 anti-trans bills introduced into the New Hampshire Legislature addressing health care, education, sports, civil rights, and bathrooms, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker . Nationally, anti-trans legislation has also surged from 21 anti-trans bills in 2015 to 638 in 2024, according to the tracker. “It was destroying us,” Abi Maxwell said.
Two other New Hampshire families have made a different choice: staying in the state to fight a new law that went into effect last Sunday and would ban their transgender daughters from playing on the girls’ sports team . Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle are two transgender girls whose families are suing the state to block the new law’s enforcement, after Tirrell was told she wouldn’t be allowed to practice with the girl’s soccer team on Monday. Advertisement On Monday, a federal judge sided with the families , determining Parker Tirrell can continue practicing with her team for now.
Amy Manzelli, Iris Turmelle’s mother, said she would consider leaving New Hampshire if the long-term forecast for trans rights in the state does not improve. “I am, in the long term, not interested in asking my child to live the rest of her childhood in an environment where she doesn’t have the same rights as other girls,” Manzelli said. Sara Tirrell, Parker Tirrell’s mother, said deep roots with family, friends, work, and volunteerism are keeping them in New Hampshire for now.
When contemplating whether to move, she said the family’s primary consideration is her daughter’s access to medical care. But for the Maxwells, the proposed legislation was already taking too great a toll to stay. Abi Maxwell said she could see her daughter’s pride in her identity turn into fear and anger as she realized that some people would not accept her.
Her daughter had insisted that her assigned gender was mistaken from the time she was 4, but it took two more years before her parents allowed her socially transition after consulting a psychologist and gender specialist. “Prior to that, she said she didn’t want to exist anymore if we made her be a boy,” Maxwell said. “The choice was, do we want to have a child or not?” Her transition sparked such a heated controversy in the conservative town of Gilford that the Maxwells moved to Concord in 2020, seeking a more welcoming community.
Maxwell detailed the saga and the story of her daughter’s transition in a book titled “ One Day I’ll Grow Up and Be a Beautiful Woman ” that Penguin Random House is set to publish in September. Advertisement “I really felt that if people could just peer through a window into our home and see the way they were destroying a family, they wouldn’t do it,” she said. On July 19, four days after Abi Maxwell and her daughter landed in California, three of the bills the family was fleeing were signed into law.
One banned transgender girls from playing on the girls’ sports team in middle and high school. A second outlawed gender-affirming genital surgeries for minors and disallowed health care providers from making referrals for this case. A third required educators to provide two-week notice to parents so they can opt their children out of education about sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and gender expression.
State Representative Terry Roy, a Deerfield Republican, was the prime sponsor of House Bill 619 , banning gender-affirming genital surgeries for minors and preventing health care providers from making referrals for this care. The bill initially sought to ban gender-affirming care for minors including puberty blockers and hormonal treatments, but those broader efforts were removed before it became law. Roy called the bill’s passage “bittersweet.
” “I know that it hurt a lot of people, at least their feelings. I don’t necessarily agree that it hurt them otherwise,” he said. Roy said he was saddened to learn the Maxwells left because of legislation he supported.
“I would never want to see anyone have to move to get what they think is the best thing for their children,” he said. “But at the same time, I have to think about the other 99 percent of children who are being impacted by the government.” Advertisement Sununu’s office did not return a request for comment on the story.
Civil liberty and child advocates in New Hampshire denounced the new laws. Emily Lawrence, the deputy advocacy director at Waypoint, a child welfare agency, said the bills “are uniquely unfair to our transgender teenagers and jeopardize their safety in our state.” Lawrence said the laws could contribute to higher rates of suicide among LGBTQ+ youth, while affirming someone’s gender has been shown to lower suicide attempts .
“We should be outraged that our state lawmakers’ actions are pushing LGBTQ+ families away,” she said. Amid a shifting legal landscape, families with transgender children are leaving states that enact health care bans and moving to states with “shield laws” protecting access to gender affirming care , according to Linds Jakows, the founder of 603 Equality, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. Fourteen states and Washington, D.
C., have shield laws, while 26 states have banned or restricted gender affirming care, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which found New Hampshire is the only New England state that restricts gender affirming care rather than protecting access to it. “I think ultimately all parents just want to keep their kids safe, and it’s unfortunate that New Hampshire was not a place where they were able to feel safe, both physically and emotionally,” Jakows said about the Maxwell’s departure.
Thousands of miles away, the Maxwells said life in California is off to a good start. Jacob Maxwell found a new job managing the front end of a grocery store. Their daughter will begin public school in the fall, where there’s an LGBTQ+ club with over 30 members she can join.
Advertisement Abi Maxwell said there are pride flags and LGBTQ+ people everywhere, and she’s noticed an improvement in her daughter, who has started greeting people when they’re out together. “I’m so thankful that my daughter can finally be in a place where she can just not feel afraid to be herself,” she said. Steven Porter of the Globe NH staff contributed to this report.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at [email protected] .
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