Dive Brief:

• Two transgender high school athletes are challenging in federal court President Donald Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order banning transgender girls and women from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity.
• Originally filed against a New Hampshire state law that bars transgender girls in grades 5-12 from playing school sports, the lawsuit filed by Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, is expanding to include Trump and the federal departments of justice and education among the defendants.
• Tirrell and Turmelle, represented by GLAD Law and the ACLU of New Hampshire, allege Trump’s executive order is discriminatory and violates their federal equal protection guarantees under the 14th Amendment and their rights under Title IX. 

Dive Insight:

Henry Klementowicz, deputy legal director at ACLU of NH, said in a Wednesday statement that every child in the state deserves “a right to equal opportunities at school.”

“We’re expanding our lawsuit to challenge President Trump’s executive orders because, like the state law, it excludes, singles out, and discriminates against transgender students and insinuates that they are not deserving of the same educational opportunities as all other students,” Klementowicz said. 

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire previously ordered in September that the two students could play sports on teams corresponding with their gender identities while Tirrell and Turmelle v. Edelblut advanced. 

Trump’s “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order, which is now being targeted by the lawsuit, calls for a recission of all federal funds from educational programs that allow transgender girls and women to participate in girls’ sports. The order also directs the U.S. secretary of education to zero in on Title IX enforcement against K-12 schools and colleges where girls and women are required “to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”

The day after Trump issued that executive order, the U.S. Department of Education opened Title IX investigations into a middle and high school athletics association in Massachusetts, as well as two universities, on the basis that they allowed transgender girls and women to play on teams aligned with their gender identity. 

Trump’s order further directs the U.S. Department of Justice to abide by the nationwide vacatur from a recent court order by a federal judge who struck down the Biden administration’s Title IX rule in January. The Biden-era Title IX rule was the first time protections were codified for LGBTQI+ students and employees at federally funded schools under the anti-sex discrimination law. 

After that January court decision, the Education Department said it would enforce the Title IX regulations finalized in 2020 during the first Trump administration.