Two transgender girls can try out for and play on girls school sports teams while the teens challenge a New Hampshire ban, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The families of Parker Tirrell, 15, and Iris Turmelle, 14, sued in August seeking to overturn the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act that Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law in July. While Turmelle doesn’t plan to play sports until December, Tirrell successfully sought an emergency order allowing her to start soccer practice last month. That order was expiring Tuesday.
In issuing a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Landya McCafferty found Tirrell and Turmelle were likely to succeed in their lawsuit. She found that the students “demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm” in the absence of a preliminary order.
Your experience is very different to mine. I went to high school in the 90s. Even back then, both JV and varsity were cut teams for most sports. Some sports were popular enough that they had no-cut teams for underclass kids. But that cost money for extra coaches, equipment, gym time, travel, etc… I was able to play basketball on the freshman and sophomore teams, but I was never good enough to make JV, let alone varsity. Now my kids are in high school and it is even more competitive, because the schools in our area have more students and less money per student for sports. My son tried out for freshman basketball. There were 60 kids trying out for 10 spots. He didn’t make the cut. Only kids who had already been playing on district select teams for years did.
I want to be clear: I don’t think it’s fair to ban trans kids from playing sports on any team. But I also don’t think we can expect people to just get over it. In their minds, at least, there’s too much at stake.