New Hampshire student athletes drop lawsuit over state’s transgender sports ban

Two New Hampshire transgender students are dropping their lawsuit against a state law barring them from girls’ sports teams, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar law in West Virginia. 

Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle will no longer continue their effort to overturn House Bill 1205, according to a motion filed in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire Wednesday. 

Chris Erchull, a staff attorney at the GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, which helped represent the plaintiffs, confirmed the decision in an interview Wednesday, saying the plaintiffs are no longer participating in New Hampshire sports. 

The law, passed in 2024, requires public school girls’ sports teams from grades 5 to 12 to accept only students who were biologically female at birth. It requires public schools to separate teams at those grade levels into those designated “females, women, or girls,” “males, men or boys,” or “coed.” And it empowers any student aggrieved by the failure of a school to comply with the law to file a lawsuit against the school district for injunctive relief and damages.

Republican supporters of the law say it will provide fairness and safety in sports by preventing transgender girls from having a biological advantage over cisgender girls. 

But attorneys for Tirrell and Turnelle argued the law deprived the girls of their 14th Amendment equal protection rights and the Title IX federal law preventing sex-based discrimination. Tirrell had been playing on a girl’s soccer team at Plymouth High School and Turmelle had been hoping to join a girls’ track team when the law took effect.

Judge Landya McCafferty issued a preliminary injunction in 2024 that allowed the law to take effect but exempted Tirrell and Turmelle, pending litigation. But McCafferty also halted proceedings as the West Virginia case, West Virginia v. B.P.J., played out in the Supreme Court.

On June 30, the court ruled 6-3 in favor of West Virginia’s law banning transgender girls from girls sports, with the majority finding the law reasonable to protect safety and fairness. That same day, McCafferty lifted her stay on the proceedings and asked the parties in the New Hampshire case to prepare new briefings in light of the decision.

Initially, Erchull said the New Hampshire plaintiffs planned to continue their lawsuit despite the Supreme Court ruling, suggesting that the legal questions in the Tirrell and Turmelle case differed from the West Virginia case. 

But on Wednesday he said the plaintiffs had changed their mind. Turmelle has moved out of New Hampshire and Tirrell, now a senior, has quit the girls’ soccer team voluntarily, Erchull said.

“I think that the game wasn’t fun anymore,” Erchull said about Tirrell’s decision. “With protestors showing up at games, with opposing teammates not willing to shake her hand at the end of the game, and with the weight of litigation around her neck throughout the years, it was just not fun anymore.”

Erchull argued the fight against the transgender sports ban laws is not over, but declined to detail any potential future action. And he said the effort would continue in the public sphere. 

“What is motivating this kind of legislation … is a desire to target, intimidate, and harm transgender young people,” he said. “Not just because you miss out on a sports opportunity, which is serious on its own, but because your entire educational experience is defined by the way that you’re being left out, singled out, and excluded.”

He added: “It’s heartbreaking for these kids, and so we’re going to continue working to show that both to the public and the courts.”

The motion filed Wednesday, known as a stipulation of dismissal, was signed by all parties of the lawsuit.

That included the parties defending the law: the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office; the U.S. Department of Justice; the Pemi-Baker School District and School Board; the Pembroke School District and School Board; and the conservative Christian advocacy groups Cornerstone and Alliance Defending Freedom. 

In a post on the social media network X, Cornerstone hailed the decision.

“We’re proud to serve as local counsel for Female Athletes United to continue protecting NH girls!” the post read, referring to a national organization that has sued Democratic states for laws allowing transgender to play on girls’ sports teams.