CONCORD, N.H. — President Trump’s administration wants to be dropped from a lawsuit in which two New Hampshire teens are challenging their state’s ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports and the president’s executive order on the same topic.
Parker Tirrell, 16, and Iris Turmelle, 14, became first to challenge Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order when they added him to their ongoing lawsuit over New Hampshire’s ban in February. A federal judge has ruled that they can try out and play on girls sports teams while the case proceeds.
In a motion filed Friday, attorneys for the government say the teens are trying to “drag the federal government into a lawsuit well under way not because of an imminent injury, but because of a generalized grievance with policies set by the President of the United States.”
Deputy Associate Atty. Gen. Richard Lawson argued that the government has done nothing yet to enforce the executive orders in New Hampshire and may never do so.
“Plaintiffs lack constitutional standing and their stated speculative risk of future injury is not close to imminent and may never become ripe,” wrote Lawson, who asked the judge to dismiss claims against Trump, the Justice and Education departments, and their leaders.
Trump’s executive order gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX — which prohibits sexual discrimination in schools — in alignment with the Trump administration’s view of a person’s sex as the gender assigned at birth.
Lawyers for the teens say the order, along with parts of a Jan. 20 executive order that forbids federal money to be used to “promote gender ideology,” subjects the teens and all transgender girls to discrimination in violation of federal equal protection guarantees and their rights under Title IX.
In its response, the government argues that the order does not discriminate based on sex because males and females are not similarly situated when it comes to sports.
Transgender people represent a very small part of the nation’s youth population — about 1.4% of teens ages 13 to 17, or around 300,000 people. But about half of the states have adopted similar measures to New Hampshire’s sports ban, with supporters arguing that allowing transgender girls to play is unfair and dangerous.
In interviews this year, neither New Hampshire teen said they feel they hold any advantage over other players. Tirrell says she’s less muscular than other girls on her soccer team, and Turmelle said she doesn’t see herself as a major athlete.
“To the argument that it’s not fair, I’d just like to point out that I did not get on the softball team,” Turmelle recalled of her tryout last year. “If that wasn’t fair, then I don’t know what you want from me.”
Ramer writes for the Associated Press.