This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Two transgender girls in New Hampshire may continue playing on girls’ sports teams indefinitely, despite a newly enacted law that bars them from doing so, a federal court judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge Landya McCafferty granted a request for a preliminary injunction filed by 15-year-old Parker Tirrell of Plymouth and 14-year-old Iris Turmelle of Pembroke. Tirrell and Turmelle, who jointly sued their respective school districts, Plymouth and Pembroke, and the New Hampshire commissioner of education, Frank Edelblut, last month, are the first transgender girls in the state to challenge the new law, which went into effect Aug. 18.
In a 48-page ruling,McCafferty wrote that the law likely violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it is “impossible to classify by transgender status without classifying by sex or gender.”
McCafferty cited court precedents in other instances where similar transgender bans were found unconstitutional, as well as a U.S. Supreme Court case in which transgender discrimination in the workplace was found to violate the law. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether laws that bar transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams similarly violate the constitution.
McCafferty’s ruling, which she appeared inclined to make at a court hearing late last month, means that Tirrell may continue to play on the Plymouth Regional High School girls’ soccer team this fall and Turmelle may participate on the girls’ indoor track team at Pembroke Academy this winter.
The ruling has no bearing on other transgender girls in the state, though Kearsarge Regional School District superintendent John Fortney said his school board considered it when it voted to defy the law and let a transgender girl in the district play soccer on the girls’ team.
McCafferty indicated that she hopes to hold a trial in Tirrell and Turmelle’s case as early as late October. Both sides agreed to a bench rather than jury trial and so McCafferty’s ruling Tuesday offers an inkling of how she may decide the case at trial.
The law at issue, HB 1205, bars students assigned male at birth from playing on girls’ school sports teams in grades five through 12.
Proponents of the law, which passed by razor-thin margins in both the House and Senate this spring, have argued that it is necessary to protect fairness and safety in girls’ sports. New Hampshire became the 26th state in the country to enact such a ban, though some of the laws in other states have been challenged in court and stayed.
A lawyer for the state, Assistant Attorney General Michael DeGrandis, argued in a legal filing that the court “should not undo the policy determinations of lawmakers by judicial fiat.”
“There is an election coming up and there is an opportunity to either amend or repeal the statute if it doesn’t meet New Hampshire residents’ needs,” DeGrandis said during the court hearing held in late August.
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