New Hampshire
Facing legislation that could reshape their lives, transgender teenagers became advocates in N.H. – The Boston Globe
As she delivered her testimony, she was direct, poised, and articulate. At this point, she’s had years of practice advocating for herself and teenagers like her. It’s a role she never asked for but feels a duty to fill.
Iris became an advocate when she was just 10 years old, with written testimony that didn’t identify her by name, her mother, Amy Manzelli, told the Globe. Eventually, her parents allowed Iris to identify herself publicly.
“I was just, like, ready to do something,” Iris said from a perch on the couch during an interview at the family’s home.
Iris came out as transgender to her family when she was 7, although her mom said Iris had been giving indications she was a girl from the time she was able to string a sentence together. As a young child, Manzelli said, Iris would ask Santa to turn her into a girl for Christmas.
After Iris came out, she was finally able to live day-to-day as a girl. She wears girls clothes, uses the girls bathroom at school, and joined the girls tennis team at school, although she didn’t make the softball team.
This legislative session, Iris has been to the State House to testify against multiple bills, including one that would bar transgender girls like her from playing on girls sports teams in grades 5-12 (House Bill 1205), could block her from locker rooms or bathrooms (House Bill 396), and would require parental notification for her and her classmates to learn about gender or gender expression (House Bill 1312). Another bill, House Bill 619, would prevent minors from receiving genital gender reassignment surgery, and it would prevent doctors from providing referrals for the procedure, which they say is exceedingly rare.
Proponents of banning transgender girls from sports say it’s unfair for them to play on the same team because they have a biological advantage. They point to the increased strength men have after going through male puberty, which they believe will allow people assigned male at birth to overtake women in sports.
All four bills are headed to Governor Chris Sununu’s desk. Sununu has indicated he supports barring transgender girls from girls sports teams, although he hasn’t directly said if he will sign the bill. If he does, Manzelli said, her family will pursue a legal challenge.
“I’m just petrified,” Manzelli said. “I’ve heard rumors that some of them are going to be vetoed, but unless all of them are vetoed, it doesn’t really matter. … None of them are OK.” Waiting to learn what will happen, Iris said, feels like “just suffering.”
In March, Sununu said it is dangerous for transgender girls to play on girls sports teams. “I fundamentally don’t believe that biological boys should be competing in girls sports,” he said.
He has stood firm on that position in recent interviews, even after hearing stories from transgender athletes in New Hampshire.
“This bill is not about the individual,” Sununu said during a June 27 interview with WMUR.
“It’s about the system as a whole. It’s about fairness, about safety,” he said. “You’ve seen all across the country, other stories of, you know, state champions, biological boys becoming state champions. That affects scholarships. That affects the fairness of competition.”
In April, New Hampshire’s child advocate Cassandra Sanchez spoke against dozens of bills that she said would harm LGBTQ+ youth, including the effort to bar transgender girls from girls sports teams.
“We’re all about equity and fairness, and all children should have an opportunity,” she said. She doesn’t see transgender athletes “trying to get ahead or hurt others by engaging in sports. They’re trying to have a normalized childhood.”
She said many children find a sense of belonging by playing team sports. Sara Tirrell, whose daughter Parker is transgender and plays soccer, agreed.
“The goal is to be part of the team,” Tirrell said.
“Parker’s team in particular won zero games last year. She was not the kid that was bowling anybody over because that’s not who she is,” she said.
Parker stood in the crowd at the Legislative Office Building during the press conference in late April next to her dad, Zach. Tears ran down her face as she listened to her mom publicly explain how she tried to comfort her daughter after a classmate called her expletives and slurs and said she should kill herself.
“As her mother, I remain committed to fostering an environment where she can live authentically and unapologetically,” Tirrell said. That has meant two years of making the hourlong drive to Concord from her home in Plymouth to testify against bills that would impact her family.
In an interview, Tirrell said she first came to the State House in 2023 to testify against a bill that would have added gender-affirming health care to the definition of child abuse.
This year, with her family’s support, Parker decided to testify for the first time, speaking against the effort to bar transgender girls from girls sports teams.
Parker has played soccer since she was 4, and she said it’s become a big part of her identity. She has played every position: defense, midfield, and striker. Soccer is how she met many of her friends. She said it would be “devastating” if the bill becomes law. Joining the boys’ soccer team, she said, is not an option, and neither is using the men’s bathroom or locker room.
Advocating for herself and others has been difficult for the 15-year-old.
“I feel like I shouldn’t have to do it because it seems like a lot for me specifically to have to do as a freshman in high school still trying to figure things out school-wise,” she said. “I don’t want to be, but it’s something important that I have to do.”
“It’s been a lot for me,” Parker said, “just having to deal with all these people trying to dictate how my life is supposed to go.”
Parker is hoping to play soccer again with her team in the fall. But, for now, her future is an open question — one that both she and Iris are waiting for the governor to resolve.
Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.
It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.
Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.
Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .
In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.
At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.
Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.
In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.
The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.
A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
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