NORTH HAMPTON — Emily Fishbaugh is like any other 15-year-old girl at Winnacunnet High School. She loves makeup, going to the movies and playing on the school’s field hockey team.

Fishbaugh faces one challenge many teens in her school do not though. She is transgender and has lived as a girl since the fourth grade. A vocal proponent of trans-rights, she testified last month in favor of a bill that would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity for employment, housing and public accommodations.

The bill, HB 478 was tabled by the House Thursday by a vote of 187-179. House Speaker Shawn Jasper said this week he believed the bill was not ready to pass the House and was concerned about men being able to improperly use women’s bathrooms.

Fishbaugh has spoken publicly about being transgender since she was in middle school, whether on panels or through her YouTube channel under the name Emily Tressa. She is passionate about playing her part in ending discrimination against transpeople.

Fishbaugh said this week she was disappointed the bill was tabled. She said most people who know little of the bill believe it focuses on bathrooms, not realizing it addresses the workplace and housing, critical components of everyday life.

“I want to be treated like everyone else,” she said. “I just want to be looked at like a human being because I do not deserve to be treated like I’m anything less than a person.”

Fishbaugh’s parents have given her their full support, and her mother, Linda, testified in Concord in favor of the bill alongside her. Linda also makes bath and body products and sells them, donating the proceeds to pro-transgender organizations like PFLAG and Camp Aranu’tiq, a summer camp for transgender youth.

Fishbaugh loves her femininity. Like many girls, she is passionate about makeup and style. In her room is her homemade YouTube studio, a desk covered with makeup under two umbrella reflector lights. She loves doing makeup demonstrations and said she might like to become a professional stylist some day.

Fishbaugh began taking a hormone blocker when she was in sixth grade, allowing her to develop soft, feminine features. When she arrived at WHS, her mother had to tell faculty she was transgender.

Named Ben at birth, Fishbaugh showed signs of being feminine at a very young age. She acted flamboyant, asked her parents for Barbie dolls and loved girls clothing. She despised wearing “ugly” boy clothes and changed into girl clothes as soon as she got home from school. Sometimes, she stretched her T-shirts out to make them more like dresses.

“She would peel off the boy when she came home from school and be happy,” said Fishbaugh’s mother, Linda.

In kindergarten, she wore a Tinkerbell costume for Halloween. When a boy her age told her she couldn’t be Tinkerbell because she was not a girl, she replied, “Well, I don’t believe you’re a ninja.” She wore her Tinkerbell costume so often after Halloween the fabric eventually fell apart.

Fishbaugh’s childhood saw darkness at times as confusion over her gender assigned at birth caused depression and anxiety. Linda said Emily tried to cut off her penis when she was 3 years old. She cried and asked why God made her a boy.

When Fishbaugh reached first and second grade, teachers began separating children by identity, making her even more conscious of her gender confusion.

“I was so unhappy,” said Fishbaugh. “I’m not myself. I don’t look like myself. That crushed me. That ruined me. It made me feel terrible.”

Linda and Fishbaugh’s father immediately embraced Emily for her apparent femininity. Linda had grown up socially conservative and Catholic, but she decided to leave the church when she realized Fishbaugh was not accepting her boyish features. At first Linda was unsure what to call her daughter’s experience, but when she learned what it meant to be transgender, she began to research it. She said it became apparent a transition was in her daughter’s future.

Fishbaugh began her transition in the third grade, growing her hair long for the first time. It was her first year at North Hampton School, having previously attended Berwick Academy, and Fishbaugh’s mother decided to tell school staff of the transition that year. They were supportive, and the next year they sent a letter to families of incoming fourth-graders introducing Emily, formerly known as Ben, explaining the situation. Parents reached out to the Fishbaughs in support, and Fishbaugh said her classmates actually thought the transition brought clarity to her gender identity.

“The kids said, ‘Finally, this makes sense,’” said Linda. “To them, she wasn’t a boy.”

Fishbaugh said she experienced little discrimination for the rest of her time at North Hampton School. For a short period, she was required to use the gender-neutral or single stall bathrooms, but by sixth grade, her mother told school staff she needed to start using the girl’s bathroom.

“And they were like, ‘OK,’ and that was it,” said Linda.

Fishbaugh became vocal about her gender identity in sixth grade, participating in speaking events about being transgender for organizations. She once spoke in front of a group of athletic directors in Newburyport, Massachusetts, who Linda described as “macho” men who “thought they knew everything” about gender identity. She said hearing her daughter speak caused some to shed tears, and they hugged Fishbaugh, saying she changed their perspective on transgender people.

“It’s hard to discriminate against Emily when you meet her or any other transgender kid,” Linda said.

Emily has befriended Jazz Jennings, a transgirl now famous for her TLC reality show “I Am Jazz,” through her speaking events.

While Fishbaugh fights for her own rights, she said there are many transpeople who transitioned much later in life and therefore had a harder time acquiring the physically features that matched their gender identity.

For those whose gender transition is more obvious, it can be difficult to avoid discrimination. Fishbaugh said she has met transpeople who were denied housing at the last minute because the landlord met them in person and changed their mind based on their gender identity. Housing was a big part of her own testimony in Concord, she said.

Fishbaugh is also conscious of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order to rescind an Obama-era federal requirement that all schools allow students to use restrooms and other facilities corresponding to their gender identity.

“Obviously, I’m not super fond of this,” said Fishbaugh of the Trump order. “I’m not going to let people discriminate against me. I deserve to be treated like a human being.”

Fishbaugh said she faces little discrimination as a student at WHS, though it happens. Emily once heard a boy was interested in her but was told by another boy, in a crass manner, that she was born a biological male.

“It hurt,” said Fishbaugh. “I try not to let things get to me.”

Linda said WHS staff have been strongly supportive. She said she received a call earlier this school year from WHS social worker Tally Westerberg, who said her daughter would not be discriminated against and would be able to use any bathroom she wants.

Fishbaugh said many students have questions about what it means to be transgender. She said she is happy to talk to students who sincerely want to learn about her experience. She said education is the most important weapon against discrimination. She corrects friends who unknowingly call her “transgendered” or transpeople “transgenders,” telling “transgirl” is technically the appropriate term.

“Or just call me Emily,” she says.