transgender rights

Questions about who should be allowed to compete in school sports in New Hampshire played out before a federal judge and the body that sets eligibility rules this week.

Two parents wore pink armbands marked with “XX” — a reference to the chromosomes typically associated with biological females — to protest the participation of transgender athletes at a high school soccer game.

“We don't want you supporting our girls the way you are,” Alex Zerba, a parent of a girls varsity soccer player, said of the protests.

In a new book, Abi Maxwell describes how anti-trans sentiment from her neighbors and elected officials pushed her family away.

Judge Landya McCafferty wrote that the law likely violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it is “impossible to classify by transgender status without classifying by sex or gender.”

The school board chair says the district determined the new law contradicts other state and federal provisions, like Title IX.

The law, which took effect Aug. 19, is facing a federal court challenge.

Attorney General John Formella joined an amicus brief in support of a West Virginia law that excludes trans students from playing girls’ sports. A similar law in New Hampshire is also facing a court challenge.

Plaintiffs in the case are seeking a broader ruling in the coming weeks that pauses the law for all student athletes.

The lawsuit claims the new law violates federal laws against sex-based discrimination by denying trans students equal access to school activities.