Some New Hampshire residents and parents are reportedly speaking out against a proposed bill that would allow children to undergo sex-change surgeries without their parent's knowledge, according to a recent report from Fox 5 News.
The bill, some critics say, promotes "trans tourism" as it would potentially allow children in New Hampshire to travel to Maine, a state that directly borders
Known as LD 1735, it "authorizes a court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care."
It is a phenomenon that some groups, like the Texas Family Project, have taken to calling "trans tourism."
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Some parents savaged the bill at a public hearing earlier this month, according to Fox 5 News.
"Your bill puts in danger children from NH by way of the absolute madness of so-called 'gender-affirming care.' Your contemplated legalized genital butchery of your minors is your perverted business, but disfigurement and permanent genital and psychological damage of NH children is not your province," Daniel Richardson of Nashua, N.H., reportedly wrote.
American Principles Project President Terry Schilling said that parents should not have to risk losing their children as a result of the "trans tourism" bill.
"Parents will do anything to protect our children. To lose your child and be powerless to prevent harm from coming to them would be any parent’s worst nightmare. Yet today, families traveling to California or Minnesota could be at risk for that awful scenario actually playing out — losing custody of their kids to an industry that aims to sterilize and mutilate their bodies," Schilling said in a statement.
"It is frightening, and enraging, to think such anti-family policies have taken hold here in the United States," he added.
Five Maine legislature lawmakers, all Democrats, did not answer a request for comment from Fox News Digital. In an interview with Maine Wire, state Rep. Laurie Osher reportedly said that she wanted to introduce the bill to make Maine a "sanctuary for providing care."
Osher also said she was introduced to the bill by the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and "instructed legislative staff to base it on a similar proposal that recently became law in California," according to Maine Wire.
Maine isn't the only state that is considering allowing children to travel and receive sex-change surgeries.
The APP is warning parents across the United States as recent legislation in California and Minnesota consider legislation that would give state family courts the power to take temporary emergency jurisdiction over a minor coming into the state to access sex-change drugs or surgical procedures, regardless of if the minor is traveling from another state.
In September, California lawmakers passed Senate Bill 107 that established the state as a refuge for transgender children and their families. The bill was introduced earlier this year by state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat.
"California must stand with LGBTQ kids and their families, especially when they’re under attack across the country," Wiener said in a statement. "Parents should never be separated from their kids or criminalized for simply allowing them to be who they are."
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The New Hampshire legislature did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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Fox News' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.
