Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports. Now, a group of high school athletes are the first to challenge it in court.
Two teenagers and their families were already suing a similar New Hampshire state law, and have added a challenge to Trump’s order to their suit.
The lawsuit, currently pending in the Northern District of New Hampshire federal court, was filed by two transgender athletes: Parker Tirrell, a 10th-grade soccer player, and Iris Turmelle, a tennis player who hopes to try out for a high school women’s tennis team this fall, plus their parents and families. The athletes are represented by the ACLU of New Hampshire and GLAD Law. A judge allowed Tirrell to play soccer this past season while the litigation continues.
Their case takes aim at Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order signed Feb. 5. The order aims to ban transgender athletes from playing school sports—from kindergarten to college—nationwide.
The executive order interprets trans participation in women’s sports as a violation of Title IX, the statute prohibiting discrimination “on the basis of sex” in schools that receive federal funding.
“I love playing soccer and we had a great season last fall,” Tirrell said in a statement Wednesday. “I just want to go to school like other kids and keep playing the game I love.”
Several LGBTQ organizations and congressional Democrats have condemned it in public statements. But this is the first official legal challenge to Trump’s specific executive order.
“The Trump Administration’s executive orders amount to a coordinated campaign to prevent transgender people from functioning in society,” said Chris Erchull, one of the GLAD attorneys representing the girls in the suit. “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.”
A representative for the Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
