One week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, two high schoolers are attempting to block the move.
A lawsuit filed by two students last August challenging New Hampshire’s exclusion of transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports will now also take on Trump’s executive order, multiple sources reported Wednesday.
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, one of the groups representing the students, said in a statement that the suit is believed to be the first to challenge the constitutionality of the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order.
“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,” said Chris Erchull, a lawyer for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.
The suit was originally filed last summer by the families of now-16-year-old Parker Tirrell and 15-year-old Iris Turmelle, both high school athletes who identify as transgender, in an attempt to overturn the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act signed in July by former Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.
A federal judge in New Hampshire allowed Tirrell and Turmelle to try out and play on their school’s girls sports teams amid the litigation. Tirrell played on her school’s soccer team last fall, while Turmelle plans to try out for the tennis team.
“I love playing soccer and we had a great season last fall,” Tirrell said in a statement. “I just want to go to school like other kids and keep playing the game I love.”
The executive order says that transgender participation in women’s sports violates Title IX. The order intends to ban transgender athletes from school sports at all levels nationwide.
In turn, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that Trump’s order puts their clients and all transgender girls at risk for experiencing Title IX discrimination.
“The Trump Administration’s executive orders amount to a coordinated campaign to prevent transgender people from functioning in society,” Erchull said.
Despite the executive order, Minnesota and California high school athletic associations have said they will adhere to their state laws, which permit transgender participation on women’s and girls teams.
Those decisions have sparked an investigation by the Office of Civil Rights, which announced Wednesday that it will look into the associations’ policies.
–Field Level Media
