On Wednesday, a judge in New Hampshire allowed President Donald Trump’s name to be added to the list of defendants in a lawsuit regarding transgender athletes in children’s sports.
The original lawsuit was filed last August after the governor of New Hampshire signed a bill into law prohibiting transgender girls from participating in female sports. The two teenage plaintiffs, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle turned their case into a national issue following Trump’s recent executive order banning biological males from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
The order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed last week said that allowing transgender athletes into female sports “is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
It also warned schools not to allow transgender participation by threatening to remove federal funding to schools that go against the order, adding that “the policy of the United States is to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity and truth.”
In September, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing the plaintiffs to compete on girls’ sports teams while their lawsuit was ongoing. But the recently amended complaint argues that Trump’s order now threatens their participation.
“The Trump Administration’s executive orders amount to a coordinated campaign to prevent transgender people from functioning in society. 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, an attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, who is representing the plaintiffs along with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, in a press release.
“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,” Erchull added.
New Hampshire is one of 27 states that has some form of ban on transgender participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Utah’s ban was put in place in 2022 after the Utah Legislature overrode Gov. Spencer Cox’s veto of a bill banning transgender girls from participating in female school sports.