School board defies state law & lets trans girl play soccer. Her teammates are “very excited.”

After a federal judge allowed a transgender teenage girl in New Hampshire to rejoin her school’s soccer team for the fall while the lawsuit against the state’s transgender sports ban continues, another school district has stood up for trans youth and permitted a trans athlete to play on her school’s soccer team.

Maëlle Jacques, a junior at Kearsarge Regional High School in North Sutton, New Hampshire, has been the goalie for the girls’ varsity soccer team at her school since last fall, but it was up in the air whether or not she was going to be able to play. On Tuesday, New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) reported that Jacques’s appeal to play on the soccer team was successful.

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In July, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) signed H.B. 1205, also known as the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” into law. This legislation prohibits transgender girls and women from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams.

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The law went into effect in August, but not before the families of two transgender teenage athletes, 15-year-old Parker Tirrell and 14-year-old Iris Turmelle, filed a lawsuit to block its enforcement. The girls appeared in court in their soccer uniforms to ask the judge to let them play while the lawsuit against H.B. 1205 works its way through the court system.

Although both her coach and administrators were supportive of Jacques playing on the team, the newly enacted law posed a risk of potential lawsuits if they allowed her to play. Jacques wrote her appeal on her own, drawing from Tirrell and Parker’s case, with assistance from her older brother and an ACLU lawyer.

According to the Boston Globe, the Kearsarge Regional school board voted 6-1 on August 29 to allow Jacques and other transgender girls to participate in school sports teams. The board’s decision referenced Title IX and a state law prohibiting discrimination in public education.

Jacques said that the decision was “relieving most of all, to just not have to sit out, and to be able to help my team.”

“I’m feeling hopeful because I know so far the school board has had my back. And I know I have great teammates and supportive coaches,” she said.

Jacques said that when she received the news and immediately messaged her team’s captains, who had been asking her daily about her return and any updates. “Obviously, they were very excited as well.”

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