WINDHAM, N.H. — Bleached blonde hair with faded remnants of lime green poked out from underneath a rainbow tophat on 15-year-old Nugget Callahan’s head as they paused for a lunch break Sunday at the fourth-annual Pride festival hosted by a local nonprofit.
Callahan, who is finishing up their sophomore year at Windham High School, where the festival was held, downed a chicken burrito and said they were impressed by the event’s turnout, especially since the town of 16,000 leans politically conservative.
“It has been getting progressively bigger each time,” they said of the event, while attendees milled about the dozens of booths that vendors and community organizations set up on the school’s front lawn despite a rainy start to the day.
Callahan expressed an overriding sense of optimism about where New Hampshire is headed in terms of queer inclusivity.
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“It feels like we are pushing towards a brighter future of acceptance around the entire state,” they said.
At the same time, even as the sun came out, there were reminders that political storms continue raging around LGBTQ identities locally and beyond, particularly for those who are transgender or nonbinary.
A couple of anti-trans protesters — including Stephen Scaer from Nashua, who was a GOP nominee for New Hampshire Senate in 2022 and is running again this year — carried signs and badgered people near the festival’s entrance. He posted videos of the encounters online.
One of the marquee performers, Clara Divine, earned applause and tips while lip-syncing under the school’s front awning, and used “Fight Song” to deliver a message of empowerment. The man behind that drag persona, Michael McMahon, is still pressing a defamation lawsuit against a state lawmaker from Derry who falsely claimed McMahon and another performer had behaved in a sexually inappropriate manner toward children during drag events.
And there are also the lingering clouds of uncertainty over pending legislation, as the state awaits word from Governor Chris Sununu on whether he will sign several bills that have been denounced by advocates for transgender rights.
One of the bills would prohibit physicians from performing gender-affirming genital surgeries on minors or referring patients elsewhere for such procedures. It passed with support not only from Republicans but also from 11 Democrats in the New Hampshire House, and Sununu suggested in a radio interview on WFEA’s Morning Update last week that the legislation takes a reasonable position on such surgeries, though he still needs to ensure the bill is written in a way that would withstand judicial scrutiny.
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The other controversial bills would bar transgender girls from girls’ sports in middle schools and high schools; expressly allow public and private entities to separate bathrooms and certain other facilities based on sex rather than gender identity; and require schools to provide two weeks’ notice to parents before introducing instructional material about gender or sexual orientation.
In his comments on the radio, Sununu said the intent behind the bills reflects the views of most Granite Staters.
“We don’t take extreme positions on this stuff,” he said. “These are the positions that a lot of families and individuals in the state are looking at, which is, yeah, there are fairness and safety concerns when it comes to biological males participating in female sports.”
Windham, by the way, is decidedly Sununu’s political territory. In 2022, he got more than twice as many votes as his Democratic challenger. In 2020, he carried about 74 percent of the town’s vote, while Donald Trump carried about 52 percent of the Windham vote in the presidential race.
Sununu signed legislation in 2018 and 2019 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity including at New Hampshire schools. He has remained noncommittal about these pending bills throughout the legislative process, leaving open the possibility of either signing or vetoing them after he reviews the final legislative language.
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Nugget Callahan said bathroom bills are generally anti-trans nonsense that won’t actually improve protections.
Callahan, who often wears skirts and other traditionally feminine garments to school, said they generally avoid using girls’ bathroom facilities to avoid causing problems since “most of the school thinks I’m a boy.”
But that cautious approach doesn’t necessarily prevent conflict. During their first year of high school, Callahan recalled a time when their femme-presenting attire elicited a stern comment at the restroom exit: “Wrong bathroom, buddy.”
That left them feeling out of place and uncertain about how to navigate their school environment without needless conflict over which facilities they use.
“I’m not sure, at all, which bathroom the student body ... would prefer me being in,” they said.
Nugget’s parent, Katreena Callahan, who helped organize the Pride festival as a board member for the nonprofit Windham Citizens for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, said the prospect of this pending legislation becoming law is scary and overwhelming.
“Not everywhere has a gender-neutral bathroom,” they said, “and going pee shouldn’t be a big deal.”
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.