Attorney Chris Erchull (left) speaks outside U.S. District Court of New Hampshire on behalf of Parker Tirrell (right) after a U.S. District Court judge temporarily blocked a law barring transgender girls from girls’ sports teams from taking effect on Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Photo by Ethan DeWitt, New Hampshire Bulletin)
A day after a state law preventing transgender girls from playing girls’ sports took effect, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the law from being used against a New Hampshire teenager.
Judge Landya McCafferty of the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire ruled Monday that neither the state nor any school district could stop Parker Tirrell, 15, from participating in practices or games for the Plymouth Regional High School girls’ soccer team, until the court meets again in a few weeks.
The ruling will allow Tirrell to join a soccer practice Monday evening with her team.
“Parker has demonstrated that she is likely to succeed on the merits of her case,” McCafferty said after a brief hearing. McCafferty’s ruling is limited and applies only to Tirrell; plaintiffs in the case are seeking a broader ruling in the coming weeks that pauses the law for all student athletes.
Tirrell, a transgender girl, was told by the Pemi-Baker Regional School District last week that she would not be able to take part in soccer practice Monday evening. The school district cited a law, House Bill 1205, which prohibits students in grades 5 to 12 who are born biologically male from participating on girls’ sports teams, even if they are transgender. That law, which took effect Sunday, allows parents of any student to sue a school district if it does not follow the law and enforce the ban.
Republicans have said the law is necessary to preserve fairness among athletes, arguing that transgender girls have an advantage over cisgender girls – those born biologically female. Democrats and LGBTQ supporters say the law is discriminatory and will shut out transgender girls who do not wish to compete on boys’ teams from participating in sports.
Lawyers for the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire have sued the state over the law on behalf of two transgender girls, Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, arguing that it is a violation of the equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution and the anti-sex-discrimination statute known as Title IX.
On Monday, the plaintiffs came before McCafferty for an emergency hearing prompted by the fact that Tirrell had soccer practice Monday night and had been told she couldn’t participate. Turmelle, a Pembroke student, is not planning to join a sports team until the winter, so attorneys did not request emergency legal action for her.
Plaintiffs requested a “temporary restraining order” against the law, a form of short-term relief that requires a judge to find that the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits of the case; that the plaintiff would suffer irreparable harm if the order were not issued; that ruling in favor of the plaintiff is most equitable to all parties; and that doing so is in the public interest.
Chris Erchull, an attorney for GLAD, argued before McCafferty that if Tirell were barred from sports practice she would suffer irreparable harm by facing discrimination and potentially enduring shame and stigma from her peers.
Michael DeGrandis, an attorney for the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, disputed that being barred from soccer practice would cause irreparable harm and argued against granting the injunction.
“Of course it is stressful and straining” to miss sports practice, he said. “But does that rise to the level of irreparable harm?”
And he said the underlying law, HB 1205, is designed to protect girls’ and women’s rights in the spirit of Title IX, not to breach them.
During a short oral argument, McCafferty expressed skepticism in that position, asking DeGrandis to explain how the law would uphold girls’ rights. “As applied to Parker, how does it serve that goal?” she asked DeGrandis.
DeGrandis said the law was not designed to apply evenly to every circumstance, and that if it applied differently to some students, that did not make it unconstitutional. “Parker’s circumstance is neither here nor there” to the application of the law, he argued.
Erchull, meanwhile, noted that Tirrell and Turmelle had undergone hormone therapy that had blocked any physical advantage they might have had before.
“They’re not going to be any faster or any stronger than typical girls,” he said in court.
McCafferty appeared to agree, noting an “uncontested reality that there is no physiological advantage” to Tirrell playing sports because Tirrell has undergone hormone therapy that has blocked any biological advantage she might have had before.
The ruling is the start of what will likely be a long legal process that could eventually arrive at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys say they will request a temporary injunction at the next hearing, which is expected within weeks. That would give them a longer-lasting pause that would block the law from applying to all students while the lawsuit is considered by the U.S. District Court.
