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A lawsuit appears to be the first challenge to the constitutionality of an executive order barring trans athletes from girls’ and women’s sports teams.
Feb. 12, 2025, 10:32 a.m. ET
Two transgender public high school students in New Hampshire are challenging President Trump’s executive order that seeks to bar trans girls and women from competing on women’s sports teams, according to documents filed in federal court on Wednesday.
The teenagers asked the court on Wednesday to add Mr. Trump and members of his administration as defendants in a lawsuit the students filed last summer regarding their eligibility to play girls’ sports at school. The state had enacted a law in August barring transgender girls in grades 5 through 12 from participating in girls’ sports, and the two students initially sued their schools and state education officials, asking the court to rule that they could compete on teams that aligned with their gender identity.
Their court filing on Wednesday appears to be the first time that the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” has been challenged in court.
The order, signed last week, effectively bars the participation of trans athletes on girls’ and women’s teams, directing the Department of Education to investigate schools that do not comply and to withdraw the schools’ federal funding. It is one of several orders in which Mr. Trump has sought to roll back government recognition of transgender Americans.
In the lawsuit, the two teenagers call Mr. Trump’s actions “a broad intention to deny transgender people legal protections and to purge transgender people from society.”
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in September allowing the two athletes, Parker Tirrell, 16, and Iris Turmelle, 15, to play on girls’ sports teams while their lawsuit was pending. Mr. Trump’s directive puts that ability at new risk, the filing states.
