After receiving approval from a judge on Wednesday, two students who are challenging the restriction that New Hampshire has placed on transgender athletes competing on girls’ sports teams will now be appealing the executive order that President Donald Trump issued titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
According to GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, also known as GLAD Law, which is based in Boston and is one of the organizations that is defending the teenagers, it is believed to be the first time that the constitutionality of the executive order that was signed by Trump last week is being contested in court.
“The systematic targeting of transgender people across American institutions is chilling, but targeting young people in schools, denying them support and essential opportunities during their most vulnerable years, is especially cruel,” Chris Erchull, a GLAD attorney stated.
A federal judge in New Hampshire issued a ruling in the fall of last year that allowed the two children to participate in and try out for girls school sports teams while they remain in the process of challenging the state ban.
During the month of August, the families of Parker Tirrell, 15, and Iris Turmelle, 14, filed a lawsuit with the intention of challenging the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which had been signed into law by the former Republican governor Chris Sununu in July.
Tirrell is a student in the tenth grade who is a member of the high school soccer team, and Turmelle is a student in the ninth grade who is planning to try out for tennis in the spring.
“I love playing soccer and we had a great season last fall,” Tirrell stated. “I just want to go to school like other kids and keep playing the game I love.”
In line with the Trump administration’s interpretation of “sex,” which defines it as the gender a person was assigned at birth, Trump’s directive last week grants federal agencies broad discretion to guarantee that organizations that receive federal financing adhere to Title IX.
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In order to add Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the U.S. Department of Education, and acting Secretary Denise Carter as defendants, GLAD and the ACLU of New Hampshire requested authorization from the judge.
The White House Press Office was contacted via email for comment.
U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty stated in a succinct ruling that she “finds good cause” for the attorneys to make changes to the lawsuit.
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The attorneys claim that Trump’s executive order and portions of an executive order issued on January 20 that prohibits the use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology” subject the teenagers and all transgender girls to discrimination in violation of their Title IX rights and federal equal protection guarantees.
Additionally, the attorneys claim that the executive orders illegally threaten to withhold federal funds from the schools of the teenagers for permitting them to participate in sports.
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