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New Hampshire student athletes move to challenge Trump’s anti-trans sports order
New Hampshire student athletes move to challenge Trump’s anti-trans sports order

LGBTQ+

New Hampshire student athletes move to challenge Trump’s anti-trans sports order

New Hampshire transgender student athletes and their families, who have already filed suit against the state’s anti-trans sports law, are seeking to expand the lawsuit to challenge Donald Trump’s similar policy.

Last year, student athletes Parker Tirrell, Iris Turmelle, and their families filed suit against House Bill 1205, which Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law in July. The legislation bars trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in grades 5-12 and requires all girls to submit a birth certificate or other evidence of their gender to be eligible to participate. A judge in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire has blocked enforcement of the law while the case continues so that the girls can continue to play.

On Wednesday, the girls and their families filed a motion asking the court to amend the suit to include a challenge to Trump’s “two sexes” executive order, which he issued on his first day in office to erase trans, nonbinary, and intersex people, and his February 5 order to keep trans females out of girls’ and women’s school sports, with schools not in compliance risking loss of federal funding. The plaintiffs are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, a.k.a. GLAD Law, and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.

The original suit named as defendants Frank Edelblut, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Education; members of the New Hampshire State Board of Education; and the girls’ school districts. The motion filed Wednesday seeks to add Trump as a defendant, along with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Acting Secretary of Education Denise Carter.

The original case alleged that HB 1205 denies the girls equal educational opportunities and singles them out for discrimination solely because they are transgender, in violation of federal law and constitutional guarantees of equal protection. The motion asks the court to add claims “that the challenged executive orders violate the equal protection rights of transgender people under the Fifth Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution; that the federal defendants “do not have the power under the challenged executive orders to override Section 1681 of Title IX and require federal grantees to engage in the discrimination that Title IX Prohibits”; and that the executive orders exceed the president’s powers and unconstitutionally infringe upon Congress’s powers.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a national law that bans sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. President Joe Biden’s administration sought to interpret it to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity but was blocked in court. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, made the same interpretation of another federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which governs job discrimination.

Tirrell is a 10th-grader who plays on her high school soccer team, and Turmelle is a ninth-grader who plans to try out for tennis this spring.

“I love playing soccer, and we had a great season last fall. I just want to go to school like other kids and keep playing the game I love,” Tirrell said in a press release from the legal groups.

“We were so grateful and proud to watch Parker play soccer with her friends last fall and to see the joy it brings her,” said her mother, Sara Tirrell. “Her father and I just want her to be happy, healthy, and know she belongs — the same things any parent wants for their child. It’s just not right for the federal government to come down so hard on a kid.”

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“The chance to try out for tennis means new teammates, new friends, and a sense of fun and belonging. I just want the same opportunities as other girls at my school,” Turmelle said in the release.

“It’s heartbreaking to have the federal government so aggressively go after our daughter,” added her parents, Amy Manzelli and Chad Turmelle. “Iris is looking forward to playing spring sports and being part of a team. We just want her to be able to attend school and get the most out of her education — on and off the court.”

“The Trump Administration’s executive orders amount to a coordinated campaign to prevent transgender people from functioning in society,” Chris Erchull, senior staff attorney at GLAD Law, said in the release. “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. School sports are an important part of education — something no child should be denied simply because of who they are. Our clients Parker and Iris simply want to go to school, learn, and play on teams with their peers.”

“We’re expanding our lawsuit to challenge President Trump’s executive orders because, like the state law, it excludes, singles out, and discriminates against transgender students and insinuates that they are not deserving of the same educational opportunities as all other students,” said Henry Klementowicz, deputy legal director at the ACLU of New Hampshire. “Every child in New Hampshire and across the country has a right to equal opportunities at school and all students do better when they have access to resources that improve their mental, emotional, and physical health.”

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