BUZZ
Key Takeaways
- Two trans-female athletes in New Hampshire withdrew their lawsuit challenging a law prohibiting biological males from competing in female sports following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to enforce such bans.
- Plaintiffs Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle initially filed the suit in 2024, later amending it due to President Trump's executive order aimed at barring trans females from women's sports.
- Turmelle's family moved out of New Hampshire partly due to new laws banning gender-affirming treatments for minors, which they view as detrimental to transgender rights.
- The decision to withdraw was lauded by critics of trans participation in women's sports, who argue that allowing it undermines women's sports and opportunities.
A pair of trans-female — aka biological male — athletes in New Hampshire have “withdrawn” their lawsuit in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to ban such athletes from competing with (biological) females.
According to the Associated Press, plaintiffs Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle were the first to legally challenge President Trump’s 2025 “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order.
Tirrell and Turmelle originally filed suit in 2024, taking on New Hampshire’s law which forbade biological males from playing on female sports teams. They amended the suit the following year after the president’s E.O.
Turmelle and his family pointed to the new New Hampshire law that bans so-called gender-affirming therapy such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement for “new” under-18 transgender patients as another reason why they moved from the state last year.
Turmelle’s mother referred to the laws as an “erasure” of her son.
In Tirrell’s case, he gave up playing on the girl’s soccer team last year due to “all of the political stuff going on,” saying it “wasn’t just about the game anymore.”
Tirrell mentioned the issue of parents in the state who last year wore “XX” wristbands to protest biological males competing on girls’ teams. A judge had ruled against the parents saying the wristbands “can reasonably be understood as directly assaulting those who identify as transgender women.”
The parents are appealing.
In response to the withdrawal of the athletes’ suit, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs said “Women and girls deserve privacy, safety, and equal opportunities. That can’t happen when males are competing in women’s sports, taking spots on women’s athletic teams, and winning women’s championships.
“President Trump’s executive orders and New Hampshire’s law recognize common sense and track Title IX, the federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women in athletics. We are grateful this case is coming to an end and that New Hampshire is free to protect its female athletes.”
MORE: Academics persist in being the ’20’ on the ’80-20′ issue of trans women in female sports
