Attorneys for female athletes defend Trump order on women's sports in NH case

Yahoo

25-02-2025

Feb. 24—Attorneys representing Female Athletes United filed a motion Friday in federal court to intervene in the suit brought by two New Hampshire transgender high school athletes.
The organization is looking to defend the state's new transgender sports law and two executive orders by President Donald Trump, which it says protect women's sports.
Female Athletes United, which has members in New Hampshire and across the country who say they have lost in athletic competitions to male athletes, is being represented by lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
HB 1205, a state law also known as the "Fairness in Women's Sports Act," was enacted last summer, but a federal judge blocked enforcement after attorneys for the families of Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, the two transgender teens, challenged the law.
Tirrell, a sophomore at Plymouth Regional High School, was allowed to play girls soccer for Plymouth last fall. Turmelle, a freshman at Pembroke Academy, wanted to try out for girls tennis this spring.
The New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association told member schools to follow Trump's Feb. 5 executive order called "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," saying in a news release that noncompliance could lead to "possible consequences to federal funding."
Attorneys for the families have now expanded the lawsuit and challenged that Trump order and one that he signed on Jan. 20 titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" and "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports.
"The Trump Administration's executive orders amount to a coordinated campaign to prevent transgender people from functioning in society," said Chris Erchull, senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), which is representing the families along with the ACLU of New Hampshire. "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.
"School sports are an important part of education — something no child should be denied simply because of who they are."
In their brief, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Concord, Female Athletes United's lawyers say the organization has members across the country who want to "compete on a safe and level playing field and cannot do so if they are forced to compete against males."
"That includes members who have been forced to compete against male athletes who identify as female," the brief says. "And it includes members who have had to do so in New Hampshire. Plus, the facial relief that plaintiffs seek extends beyond just sports teams. It would affect the executive orders' protections for female locker rooms, restrooms, and other private spaces, and (Female Athletes United) and its members also have a concrete interest in keeping males out of those private spaces."
"Women and girls deserve privacy, safety, and equal opportunities. That can't happen when males are competing in women's sports, taking spots on women's athletic teams, and winning women's championships," Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel and vice president of litigation Jonathan Scruggs said in a statement.
"President Trump's executive orders and New Hampshire's law merely recognize common sense and track Title IX, the federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women in athletics. While the rest of the world is returning to biological reality, activists continue to push gender ideology in schools and sports across the country.
"But female athletes have already suffered enough humiliation of losing to males in women's sports and being told to stay silent — we are urging the court to consider their voices when deciding this vital case."
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