A transgender teenage girl can rejoin her teammates on the soccer field — at least temporarily — after a federal judge ruled in favor of her challenge to a new New Hampshire state law that seeks to ban her from the girls’ team.
Parker Tirrell, 15, laced up her cleats for practice Monday evening after US District Court Chief Judge Landya McCafferty approved an emergency order filed by the teen’s parents seeking her right to join her teammates in time for the start of the season.
The families of Tirrell and 14-year-old Iris Turmelle filed a lawsuit Friday against New Hampshire’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” arguing that the legislation signed by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu last month is discriminatory under the Title IX amendment.
The new law states that student athletes’ eligibility to play on a girls’ or boy’s team is based on the sex listed on their birth certificates.
Tirrell had filed an emergency order to allow her to go to her soccer practice on Monday, while Turmelle’s sports season doesn’t begin until December.
Outside the emergency order ruling, the two teens and the state must find a date for a hearing in which the court will decide whether to block New Hampshire from enforcing the law while the lawsuit makes its way through the court system.
The teens’ families argue that the law violates Title IX, which protects people in the US from discrimination and exclusion on the basis of their sex, sexual orientation and/or gender identity in any education program or activity receiving federal money.
McCafferty questioned the applicability of the law’s argument given that Tirrell has no physiological or biological advantage over cis girls since she has taken puberty-blocking medication to prevent the development of male physique — like muscle development — that the law argues creates an unlevel playing field between cis and trans players.
The judge also ruled that the law — and Tirrell’s inability to go to the first practice alongside her teammates — would cause irreparable harm and thus approved the emergency filing.
The teen’s lawyer said the girl being sidelined from her team and the practice would have a “permanent, stigmatizing impact” on her.
“Sports has been a source of joy for [Tirrell] and has been the primary way she makes friends and experiences a sense of belonging and connection to others. Soccer is her real passion,” the suit states. “She played on the girls’ soccer team last year in ninth grade and is excited to rejoin her team when the season officially starts again on August 30, 2024.”
With Post wires
