#

Attorneys challenging Tennesse’s law banning sex-change medical procedures for children before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday struggled to make their case before skeptical judges. If the court upholds Tennessee’s law, that would add more support to a similar law here in New Hampshire.

The Biden administration’s Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar joined ACLU attorney Chase Strangio in challenging the law. They suffered a major setback when Strangio was forced to admit a commonly-used argument regarding sex-change treatment for minors and suicide is in fact false.

Both the Biden administration and the ACLU argue Tennessee’s ban, which is similar to the ban Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law this summer, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. They argue that because hormone treatments can be given to minors struggling with the impacts of puberty to advance their sexual development — such as giving males testosterone — but these treatments can’t be used to change a child’s sex — giving testosterone to females — it is discriminating on the basis of sex.

Without those treatments, children deemed to be suffering from gender dysphoria will be at risk of suicide, according to Prelogar.

“Left untreated, gender dysphoria can result in severe physical and psychological harms. Those harms include ‘debilitating distress, depression, impairment of function, substance use, self-surgery to alter one’s genitals or secondary sex characteristics, self-injurious behaviors, and even suicide,’” Prelogar wrote in her brief to the Court. 

Alito confronted Prelogar with multiple studies that found no significant change in suicide rates, including research from Sweden and Great Britain. For example, he cited the United Kingdom’s Cass Review, which found little evidence to further the viewpoint that the benefits of transgender treatment are greater than the risks.

“I wonder if you would like to stand by the statement in your position, or if you think it would now be appropriate to modify that and withdraw your statement?” Alito asked.

Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer who was born a biological woman and now identifies as a man, conceded the facts show suicide among untreated transgender adolescents does not happen, but claimed untreated transgender kids think about suicide.

“Completed suicide is thankfully and admittedly rare,” Strangio said. 

The actual rarity of transgender-identifying adolescents committing suicide hasn’t stopped Democrats from using the trope to argue in favor of surgically altering children or allowing schools to socially transition kids behind their parent’s back.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley claimed transgender kids would kill themselves if schools were legally barred from hiding transitioning efforts from parents.

“[The children] will be kicked out or beaten (to death) or commit suicide,” Buckley wrote on social media.

Strangio also didn’t help the cause by appearing on CNN and suggesting that children as young as two years old know they were born in the wrong bodies.

“These are doctors who are wanting to treat their patients in the best way that they know how, based on the best available evidence to us,” Strangio said of doctors who give hormone treatments to young children. “And these are young people who may have known since they were two years old exactly who they are, who suffered for six or seven years before they had any relief.”

Given the Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, it is likely to side with Tennessee and uphold the ban. The conservative justices generally expressed skepticism that the medical science surrounding transgender adolescents is settled as more data comes in from Europe showing the harms of using surgery and hormone therapy on children, contradicting the current state of medicine in America.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the fact that the medical communities in progressive European countries are expressing reservations should give leaders in America pause.

“If it’s evolving like that and changing, and England’s pulling back and Sweden’s pulling back, it strikes me as a pretty heavy yellow light, if not red light, for this court,” Kavanaugh said.

Bow High School superintendent Marcy Kelly rejects the claim that she opposes freedom of expression at school events. She told a federal judge on Friday that flags and symbols are welcome — as long as she agrees with their message.

Specifically, Kelly told United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe that, while she stands by her decision to ban parents from wearing pink wristbands in support of girls-only sports, she would welcome the waving of Gay Pride flags and other symbols at the same events.

Soccer dads Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote were slapped with “no trespass” orders by Kelly and the Bow School District after they wore the wristbands at the Sept. 17 girl’s Bow High School soccer game against Plymouth High School.

Kelly told the court she found the wristbands “exclusionary,” and therefore, she believes she has the authority to ban them from school events.

Kelly testified she knew from emails and social media posts that the men might wear the pink “XX” wristbands, and that was something she wanted to stop. “I had concerns (Foote and Fellers) were going to display an anti-trans message on that one day.”

Kelly admitted she initially considered banning all would-be spectators from the game. Instead, she settled on a plan to have police at the game and use school officials to patrol the sidelines looking for actions or symbols she found offensive.

“XX is a pretty well-known anti-trans symbol,” Kelly claimed.

(According to science, women have XX chromosomes and men have XY chromosomes.)

Del Kolde, an attorney with the nonprofit Institute for Free Speech who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Kelly, asked Kelly if she would allow parents to wear LGBTQ+ Rainbow Pride wristbands at games.

No problem, Kelly said. “It’s inclusionary, it’s not targeting or harassing anyone,” she said.

And that, Kolde told NHJournal, is a legal smoking gun.

“The Bow School officials have basically admitted to engaging in viewpoint discrimination. That is illegal in a limited public forum, such as school sporting events. We hope that this censorship regime will soon be enjoined.”

United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe has already overturned Bow’s “no trespass” order that prevented Fellers and Foote from going to games and other afterschool events. Whether the dads can engage in silent protests at future games and events by wearing the XX wristbands is still up in the air.

Kelly said her belief that “XX” symbolism is anti-transgender bigotry is on based on her reaction to the work of Riley Gaines, the NCAA swimmer who was forced to compete against a biological male, Lia Thomas.

“I find that when (Gaines) says ‘XX means real women,’ that is exclusionary,” Kelly said.

Gaines has emerged as a national advocate for girls-only sports and private spaces. In August, Gaines came to New Hampshire to support a new law banning males from girls’ support in the 5th through 12th grades. She described “the experience of competing against a man in women’s sports, being forced without warning or consent to undress before the fully intact male.”

Support for protecting girls’ sports from biological males who want to compete has soared over the past few years. Polls in New Hampshire and at the national level show voters support banning males from girls’ sports by a three or four-to-one margin.

Also on Friday, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella joined a group of 24 state attorneys general urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling and uphold an Arizona law prohibiting biological boys from competing on girls’ sports teams.

“Basing the distinction on biology rather than gender identity makes sense because it is the differences in biology—not gender identity—that call for separate teams in the first place: Whatever their gender identity, biological males are, on average, stronger and faster than biological females,” the brief reads in part.

New Hampshire passed a similar law over the unanimous opposition of Democrats in the state House and Senate.

Last week’s hearings in the Bow case will inform McAuliffe’s decision on possibly lifting the ban on silent protests. A trial on the merits of the lawsuit is still to come. 

One of the Bow parents fighting for his right to bear pink, XX wristbands at school athletic events faced a slightly skeptical judge during Thursday’s hearing in the United States District Court in Concord.

When asked by Judge Steven McAuliffe why he wore the wristbands to a Bow girl’s soccer game in September, Anthony “Andy” Foote testified he wanted to support girls in girl’s sports, and not negatively target people in the transgender community with his protest.

“The bottom line is girls are losing what they fought for,” Foote said. 

But McAuliffe wasn’t sold on that explanation, saying it reminds him of the people who protested against the Vietnam War when he was a young man.

“They said, I’m not protesting the war, I’m supporting peace,” McAuliffe said. “I don’t see the difference there.”

Foote, along with fellow soccer dad Kyle Fellers, Foote’s wife Nicole Foote, and Eldon Rash, are suing the Bow School District after they were banned for the offense of wearing pink wristbands marked with XX. Thursday’s evidentiary hearing will allow McAuliffe to decide if the parents can put on the wristbands at games or not. More testimony is anticipated Friday.

After Foote and Fellers were forced to remove the wristbands at the Sept. 17 game, and Fellers was ordered to leave the field, both men were served with no trespassing letters from the Bow School District that banned them from their children’s games and other school events. McAuliffe overturned the ban last month, but he did not block the district’s prohibition against silent forms of protest.

When questioned by the attorneys, both Fellers and Foote maintained on the witness stand they were supporting women’s sports by wearing the wristbands. But McAuliffe wanted to establish Foote and Feller’s need to publicly support for women isn’t occurring in a vacuum. 

“The object of your protest is, ‘I don’t like the fact a trans girl is playing on a girl’s team,’” McAuliffe said. “It’s all about the trans girls playing on girls’ teams.”

McAuliffe previously suggested there is nothing bigoted in believing that transgender girls — aka “biological boys” — should not play full-contact sports with biological girls. He said again Thursday that opinion is not out of bounds.

“You’re entitled to your viewpoint, a lot of people hold it,” McAuliffe said.

Bow’s Sept. 17 game was against the Plymouth High School girl’s team, whose roster includes biological male Parker Tirrell. The week before the Bow game, Tirrell won the right to play on the girl’s team in a lawsuit against New Hampshire’s law banning biological boys from girl’s spots, HB 1205. Tirrell played nearly the whole game against Bow on Sept. 17. 

In the days leading up to the game against Plymouth, and after Tirrell’s legal victory, Foote sent an email to Bow Athletic Director Mike Desilets demanding action to protect the girl’s team.

“Where’s your courage? Where’s your integrity? Stand up for real women or get out of the way,” Foote wrote.

Desilets also received an email from another parent warning about planned disruptive protests at the Plymouth game by angry parents. Foote said that email, warning that soccer dads planned to wear dresses and harass Tirrell, is not based on any facts and the writer had no conversation with him about his protest plans.

And, it was pointed out, none of those events happened.

Instead, the four wore their pink wristbands, there was no comment made toward Tirrell during the game, and no mention of any specific player.

“This was not about heckling Parker Tirrell,” Foote said.

McAuliffe also viewed the police body camera recording of the confrontation between Bow Police Lt. Phil Lamy and Fellers. Fellers had been ordered to leave the field after becoming verbally combative with officials. At his car in the parking lot, Fellers held up a sign with a “Support women in women’s sports” slogan and got into another verbal altercation with Lamy when the game ended.

Fellers was reportedly holding up his sign in the direction of Plymouth’s team bus, but said he did not notice the bus and had no intention of targeting Tirrell.

“I don’t believe anybody should intimidate anybody,” Fellers said.

McAuliffe’s questions about Foote’s intent highlight the nuance in the legal issues at play. While there’s a free speech right to protest, there are also laws against harassment. The school district has maintained it was trying to protect Tirrell from anti-transgender harassment when officials confronted the parents over the wristbands and forced them to remove the items. 

However, that does not explain why the parents were subsequently banned from all after school events. That may be cleared up Friday when Bow Superintendent Marcy Kelly is expected to testify.

The ‘Soccer Dad’ season is over for Marc Jacques.

The father of a male Kearsarge High School athlete who’s a star in girls competitions, Jacques has agreed to start his prison sentence on a federal conviction for distributing child sex abuse images.

Marc Jacques was sentenced to five years in prison back in September. But using concerns over his child’s challenges as a male who identifies as female, he was given until December to turn himself in. Part of the reason was to let him attend his child Maelle Jacques’ girls soccer games.

When parents learned a man convicted of child porn charges was attending their daughters’ soccer matches, they immediately expressed alarm. They were even more upset when the elder Jacques was busted last month for allegedly accessing more child sex abuse images online while he was on supervised, pre-incarceration release.

Last week, Marc Jacques waived his violation hearing and agreed to begin his five-year prison term.

Maelle Jacques, a biological boy, dominated the girls track competition earlier this year. Maelle Jacques’ participation on the Kearsarge girl’s soccer team caused several teams to forfeit games as the district openly flouts a state law banning biological boys from girl’s sports.

Initially, girls on opposing teams and their families were concerned about the competitive imbalance presented by Maelle Jacques playing goalie, but they were later outraged to learn that Marc Jacques was attending the games despite his status as a convicted sex offender.

Marc Jacques used his child’s sexual identity to successfully plead for more free time before his prison sentence, telling United States District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro that Maelle Jacques needed him at the games.

“Maelle is going to need me to be present and in attendance to support [Maelle] and protect [Maelle] in the face of the fears [Maelle] will have of what could happen to [Maelle] on the athletic fields,” Marc Jacques wrote in a letter to the court.

Kearsarge officials knew about the conviction and sentence, but they allowed Marc Jacques onto school property to attend games anyway. They also said nothing to opposing teams when Kearsarge went on the road, either. Superintendent John Fortney said in a letter to parents there was no legal way for the district to stop Marc Jacques from attending the games.

“Because these events are open to the public, the district may restrict access only in the case of a prior civil no trespass order, or active court order. In general terms, we cannot selectively determine who may or may not attend any event,” Fortney stated. 

Whether or not the opposing school administrators had advance knowledge of Marc Jacques’ conviction, none of them seemed able or willing to put a stop to his presence.

Hopkinton school officials only found out about Marc Jacques’ conviction when Hillsboro-Deering mother Betsy Harington alerted them hours before Kearsarge and Marc Jacques were set to be in Hopkinton last month.

While Hopkinton did contact police to be present at that game, no steps appear to have been taken to either block Marc Jacques from the game, or alert Hopkinton parents. 

Officials at Bishop Brady High School in Concord were aware of Marc Jacques and his conviction before their game last month with Kearsarge. But Bishop Brady girls and their parents were advised by the Roman Catholic Diocese not to boycott the game. In fact, the girls and their families were told to play against Kearsarge so as not to discriminate against Maelle Jacques.

When it comes to obeying the law, the Kearsarge School District is suffering from legal schizophrenia.

On one hand, district officials claim they can’t stop a convicted sex offender busted for child pornography from walking on campus to attend girls soccer games.

On the other hand, they claim the right to ignore New Hampshire’s state law banning biological males from playing on the girls’ soccer team.

The player is Maelle Jacques, a biological male who identifies as a girl and plays goalie for Kearsarge.

The convicted sex offender, who’s scheduled to report to prison in December but insists on attending games today, is Jacques’ father, Marc.

Kearsarge is scrambling to contain the damage the district’s administration created when it became known that officials were aware that parent Marc Jacques pleaded guilty to distributing child sex abuse images earlier this year. Marc Jacques was never prevented by school officials from going to any girl’s soccer games this year to watch his child Maelle Jacques compete.

“Because these events are open to the public, the district may restrict access only in the case of a prior civil no trespass order, or active court order. In general terms, we cannot selectively determine who may or may not attend any event,” Superintendent John Fortney said in a letter sent to parents this week.

Marc Jacques is back in custody after he allegedly violated the conditions of his pre-incarceration release by possessing a flash drive containing more child sex abuse images.  Marc Jacques was sentenced to five years in prison last month, but given until December to report to prison authorities to begin his sentence. 

It is not unusual for federal defendants to get a few weeks of freedom between the sentencing hearing and the start of their incarceration. That time is meant to allow the defendants to get their affairs in order before going to prison. 

But Marc Jacques was given months of pre-incarceration release after he pleaded with the court that his child, Maelle Jacques, needed him at the soccer games. Marc Jacques said factors like the state law banning biological boys from playing girl’s sports, and potential threats of violence against transgender people, required that he be at the games.

“Maelle is going to need me to be present and in attendance to support [Maelle] and protect [Maelle] in the face of the fears [Maelle] will have of what could happen to [Maelle] on the athletic fields,” Marc Jacques wrote.

But Fortney is also telling parents who are upset that a biological male is on the high school’s girls soccer team that Kearsarge is not going to comply with state law. In New Hampshire, state law requires high school athletes to compete on the team that matches their sex at birth.

But the school district told parents who want the law enforced that it refuses to do so.

“Relative to HB 1205, this bill is a violation of federal law, the U.S. Constitution, and NH’s own Civil Rights Provision,” the district declared, without evidence or any court rulings confirming their statements.

While a federal judge has suspended the enforcement of HB 1205 for two specific students, the law has not been overridden, nor has it been declared unconstitutional.

“Kearsarge is violating the law,” an attorney with knowledge of the case told NHJournal on background.

As for the convicted sex offender, Fortney claims Kearsarge takes the safety of all the students seriously, and consulted with police and attorneys about the matter. Sutton Police Chief Jonathan Korbet told NHJournal he had conversations with Kearsarge about the girl’s soccer games.

“We decided it was necessary to provide police details at JV and varsity girl’s soccer games,” Korbet said.

Under the conditions of the pre-incarceration release, Marc Jacques is to have no unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18. Korbet said that condition is vague and difficult to enforce at the soccer games.

“It’s hard to determine what constitutes unsupervised. In a public place, in a public setting, one could argue that’s not unsupervised,” Korbet said.

But Kearsarge knew Marc Jacques was going to away girl’s soccer games as well. Hopkinton Superintendent Michael Flynn said this week officials in his district were unaware of Marc Jacques’ conviction until hours before the Kearsarge team was set to play at Hopkinton on Oct. 7. Flynn also talked to local police and the Hopkinton’s legal team, and put in a safety plan 45 minutes before the game time. Like Fortney, Flynn said he legally could not stop Marc Jacques from attending the game.

“We want to make sure that we, as a school district, follow the laws. I am not able to arrest anybody, and I can’t create court orders,” Flynn said.

At the Oct. 7 Hopkinton game, Marc Jacques was caught on video interacting with a young boy until the child’s mother was alerted. NHJournal has seen the video, but is not sharing it in order to protect the boy’s identity.

The hands-off treatment Marc Jacques received from multiple school districts before he was arrested for violating his release is in stark contrast to the way the Bow School District treated a group of parents who engaged in a silent protest last month.

Kyle Fellers and Anthony “Andy” Foote were slapped with no trespassing orders by Bow school officials for wearing pink “XX” wristbands at the Sept. 17 girl’s soccer game. Bow officials claim they acted out of an obligation to protect a transgender student on the opposing Plymouth High School team from the silent protest. 

The people who allowed a man convicted of distributing child sex abuse images to roam the sidelines at Kearsarge girls’ soccer games are silent now that he’s been arrested yet again, on charges he possessed yet another stash of child pornography.

But one of the parents who blew the whistle on Marc Jacques, Betsy Harrington, is still speaking out. The mother of a Hillsboro-Deering High School student, Harrington, was shocked when she learned about Marc Jasques’ conviction and the fact his status as a felon was being hidden from parents. Harrington first learned about Marc Jacques after she saw him at a girl’s soccer game earlier this month.

“The school never told the girls, never told the parents,” Harrington said.

Many of the Hillsboro-Deering girls boycotted the game with Kearsarge over Maelle Jacques’ participation, a scenario repeating itself all this season. Nearly 6 feet tall, biological male Maelle Jacques is already a champion girls track athlete, easily beating his biologically female competitors during the state championship this year. 

Marc Jacques and Kearsarge have been riding the wave of progressive support for males who identify as female, getting Maelle Jacques nominated for a Biden White House “Girls Leading Change” award. 

A day after the game between the Kearsarge and Hillsboro-Deering girls soccer teams, Harrington was horrified to learn about Marc Jacques’ conviction. Harrington started contacting school officials, police, elected representatives — anyone who might be able to do something about Marc Jaques being at the game.

“Someone has to listen,” Harrington said.

Marc Jaques isn’t going to more games any time soon. He’s locked up as a danger to the community after he was arrested Friday for having a new, secret stash of child sex abuse images, according to court records.

Multiple public officials knew about his conviction for months, and still let him go to games to watch his child compete. In fact, according to U.S. Attorney for the District of New Hampshire Jane Young, it took the efforts of many concerned parents like Harrington calling to get the United State Probation Department to take a second look.

“I commend those parents for calling here. I would ask if there is a parent who has a concern that they continue to call,” Young said.

Marc Jaques pleaded guilty in February to sharing dozens of videos and photos depicting child sex abuse images with pedophiles online. Law enforcement found hundreds of abuse videos and photos on Marc Jacques’ digital devices. He claimed in court that he suffers from a sex addiction.

According to court documents. Marc Jaques spent years chatting online with predators, sharing his fantasies about raping children, and even tracking down the identity of at least one of the victims and sharing that identity with other disturbed men online. And yet school officials allowed him to attend Kearsarge girl’s soccer games.

That stands in stark contrast to the treatment of two parents in Bow, N.H., who were slapped with no trespass orders by the Superintendent of Schools for wearing pink wristbands with “XX” written on them to girls soccer game to show their support for girls-only sports.

Kearsarge School District Superintendent John Fortney, Assistant Superintendent Michael Bessette, and School Board Chair Alison Mastin, all failed to respond to requests for comment NHJournal. A review of Kearsarge school board meetings indicates the board held a non-public session in September dealing with the Marc Jacques legal question.

After the guilty plea, Marc Jacques was free on bail pending his sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in Concord. He was sentenced to five years in prison last month, but given until December to report to the Bureau of Prisons to begin his sentence. From his guilty plea through to his arrest last week, Marc Jacques was under no legal restriction to stay away from people under the age of 18. 

However, according to his sentencing form filed in court, once he serves his prison sentence and is released on probation, Marc Jacques will be prohibited from any contact with a child under 18, and he will be prohibited from even going to a park, playground, or sporting event where people under the age of 18 will be present. 

Chief United States Probation Officer Kevin Lavigne declined to speak in detail about Marc Jacques’ release conditions, and he could not answer why a man deemed too dangerous to be around children once he has served his prison sentence was allowed to be around children before he reported to prison.

Harrington, a retired prison counselor who worked with convicted sex offenders, said Marc Jacques’ treatment throughout the case makes no sense. He first popped up on law enforcement radar for child sex abuse image distribution years before he was arrested, she said.

“I don’t think we know the depths of his offending yet. I think the biggest problem was the length of time he had to reoffend,” Harrington said. “There was too much time between the time he was caught, to the time he pled guilty, to the time he was sentenced, to the time he was incarcerated. It all added up to too much time available to reoffend. Plus he was around girls the whole time.”

Harrington thinks Marc Jacques used the debate over his child Maelle Jacques to create sympathy and get a light sentence and easy pre-incarceration conditions. While Young’s office sought 78 months in prison for Marc Jacques, he ended up with a 60-month sentence. Harrington thinks the many school and court officials who should have known better caved to the transgender narrative Marc Jacques pushed.

“That was why he got the weaker pre-incarceration conditions,” Harrington said.

Before his sentencing, Marc Jacques wrote a letter to the court pleading for leniency. His argument was that Maelle Jacques needed him to support the process of gender transition. In the letter, Marc Jacques stated Maelle Jacques’ mother does not think gender transition is the right treatment.

“Transgendered teens have the highest rate of suicide in the United States, and I am afraid for Maelle and her path if she is forced to live with her mother and her stepmother in a home where she is not supported and feels unwelcome,” Marc Jacques wrote.

United States Attorney for the District of New Hampshire Jane Young

Young said the Probation Department claimed they had Marc Jacques on some of the strictest pre-incarceration conditions available, and that he had been complying with all of those supposedly strict conditions. 

“We considered him somebody who needed to serve a significant period of time in prison, but we also had information about him abiding by those conditions. We are only as good at the information we are given,” Young said.

After a flood of calls from parents like Harrington, the United States Attorney’s Office contacted Probation about concerns that Marc Jacques was a danger. Marc Jacques’ probation officer then checked his monitored internet and found a new, illicit digital storage device was being used. On that device were more images of child sex abuse, according to court records. 

“It’s disturbing and quite frankly unacceptable,” Young said.

Young deferred questions to Lavigne, but said this case highlights the need for greater scrutiny of probationers and their conditions. Without tight conditions and assertive probation officers, prosecutors and judges are left in the dark, Young said.

United States District Court Judge Landya McCafferty ruled again Tuesday to prevent New Hampshire from enforcing its law keeping biological males from participating in girls sports.

The judge extended a temporary order allowing 15-year-old Parker Tirrell to play on the Plymouth High School girls soccer team. Tirrell and 14-year-old Iris Turmelle have filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.

When Gov. Chris Sununu signed the law last month, he made New Hampshire the 26th state to pass laws protecting girls sports from male athletes.

New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and his office are defending the law, both in New Hampshire and at the national level. His attorneys are in court before Judge McCafferty, and he’s joined 25 other state attorneys general urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue.

“We remain committed to vigorously defending this new law and will determine next steps once the Court issues its order,” Formella said.

In New Hampshire, both sides have requested a bench trial, rather than a jury trial. McCafferty signaled during Tuesday’s hearing she will likely rule in favor of Tirrell and Turmelle, saying she believes the New Hampshire law violates Title IX, the law that protects women’s sports, and Title XII, the law against employment discrimination. 

If McCafferty does strike down the law, the decision to pursue an appeal will almost certainly be made by New Hampshire’s next governor. And if it is a Democrat, it’s all but certain the law will be allowed to die and girls will be competing against biological males once again.

Neither former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig nor Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington would respond to questions about this case from NHJournal. However, they’ve both made it clear they oppose the new law.

“These bills are an attack on at-risk trans kids across New Hampshire. Our state needs leadership focused on delivering results, not division. As governor, I will always stand up for the right of our residents to live authentically, without demonization,” Craig said.

Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, who is challenging Craig in the Democratic primary, linked banning boys from girls sports teams to violent hate crimes when the law was signed this summer.

“We’ve seen a rise in hate crimes against our LGBTQ+ community, in part because radical Republicans have villainized trans kids who’re already vulnerable & at a higher risk of suicide. When I’m governor, everyone will be free to love who they love & be who they are,” Warmington said on social media.

The two GOP candidates for governor have a very different view.

Chuck Morse, running against Kelly Ayotte in the GOP primary, says he’d fight for an appeal if elected.

“As governor, I would absolutely pursue an appeal if the court finds against the state. It is a question of fairness and protecting the rights of women to play sports on a level playing field. To me it is simple: boys should play against boys and girls should play against girls,” Morse said.

Ayotte agrees.

“As the only candidate for governor who has actually argued before the Supreme Court, I will do whatever it takes to defend our state. As the proud mom of a three-sport state champion female athlete, I believe protecting women’s sports is a matter of fairness. Women fought for decades to achieve that fairness through Title IX. When I am governor, New Hampshire’s female athletes will have a champion in the Corner Office,” Ayotte said.

Polls show Granite Staters overwhelmingly support allowing girls to compete in girls-only sports, rather than forcing them to compete against biological males who identify as female. It’s not just theory, either. A biological male took first place in the girls high jump competition earlier this year, beating every female in the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) indoor track and field championship.

At the global level, the top two boxers in women’s Olympic boxing both had male chromosomes.

Lawyers for Tirrell and Turmelle want to block the law from taking effect throughout the state, arguing that stopping transgender girls from playing girls sports is discriminatory.

“This law was designed to prevent trans girls from playing sports with other girls … The only difference is their sex assigned at birth. Girls not assigned female at birth are being excluded,” said Chris Erchull, an attorney with GLAD, the GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders organization which is representing Tirrell and Turmelle.

Assistant Attorney General Micheal DeGrandis argued legal precedent allows public institutions, like schools, to make distinctions between boys and girls. The New Hampshire law makes that distinction in an objective, equitable manner by requiring every student to play on sports teams that correspond to their biological sex at birth.

“We’re not trying to define ‘sex’ at all, we’re just saying ‘What does it say on your birth certificate,’” DeGrandis explained.

While the law might mean students like Tirrell and Turmelle are required to play coed sports instead, that does not make the law unconstitutional. The law was crafted as a way to protect competitive fairness in girls sports, and to keep biological girls safe from possible injury, DeGrandis said.

“There was no discriminatory intent or animus. This was an attempt to solve legitimate problems, even if people disagree with the best way to do it,” DeGrandis said.

The appropriate remedy for those opposed to the law should not be in court, DeGrandis said, but in the democratic political process, who noted there is an election happening in a few months.

“The Court should not be making decisions for the legislature,”  he said.

McCafferty extended the temporary restraining order that allows Tirrell to practice and play soccer with the girls team for another two weeks. McCafferty could rule on an injunction the teens are seeking against the law during that time. That injunction would likely be in place through any trial.

The daycare employee accused of sending thousands of child sex abuse images to her romantic partner, former state Rep. Stacie Marie Laughton (D-Nashua), is getting a mental health evaluation.

Lindsay Groves, 39, of Hudson, was arrested in June 2023 and charged with federal crimes for allegedly taking sexually explicit photos of the children under her supervision in the Tyngsborough daycare where she worked. Groves allegedly sent those images to Laughton as part of their disturbing sex life. 

According to court records, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Cabell last week ordered Groves to be removed from her current jail cell by U.S. Marshalls and brought to a facility where she will undergo a mental health evaluation to determine if she is able to even stand trial.

“I find there is reasonable cause to believe that [Groves] may presently be suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering her mentally incompetent within the meaning of [the law],” Cabell wrote.

Groves has been arguing for months she is not mentally competent to stand trial, according to court records, though many of those records are sealed. Cabell’s Aug. 9 order does not give details as to why he finds it reasonable she might be mentally ill.

Both Groves and Laughton are being held without bail pending a trial in the United States District Court in Boston. The last known location the two were being held pretrial was the Valley Street Jail in Manchester. Representatives with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston declined to confirm their present location. At this point, Laughton has not tried to raise the issue of competency.

Prosecutors are under court order to get Groves to an appropriate faculty so the evaluation can be done within the next month by a psychiatrist or psychologist. Then, whoever examines Groves must present a report to Cabell detailing her mental health history, any current diagnosis, and an expert opinion on if Groves is competent to stand trial.

The pair were arrested separately last summer after Laughton started showing other people the images Groves was sending, according to court records. Soon after, Nashua Police began investigating the couple.

Laughton and Groves have a long-standing, volatile relationship. In 2022, Laughton was charged with harassing Groves and her family, which cost Laughton a seat in the state legislature. Laughton was arrested in November of that year for stalking Groves shortly after winning reelection to the House. Laughton was jailed for weeks until the House Democratic Caucus finally forced a resignation.

During the investigation of the stalking case, it was revealed that Laughton had called the police to report Groves was abusing children at the daycare. The accusation was dismissed as part of the ongoing harassment at that time.

According to the federal case documents, Laughton and Groves were reconciled after the stalking case was resolved without a jail sentence. Groves started sending the disturbing photos to Laughton, and the two had explicit conversations via text about the images and their own sexual desires. 

Laughton and Grove discussed raping the children at the daycare facility. In one chilling exchange, they strategized about how to get away with the horrific crime. Laughton maintained there was nothing wrong with sexually abusing children:

GROVES: “You mentioned how I said I was afraid that the kids will run to the parents if we do it with them I wasn’t being serious.”

LAUGHTON: “OK because like I get concerned about that cause I don’t wanna get caught if we do.”

GROVES: “I was joking anyway and you took me serious.”

LAUGHTON: “Oh I know but I just don’t wanna get in trouble. I mean I want to do what we want to do because we like it and we approve of it but others think this is wrong. Lots of parents don’t like people touching their kids and it is against the law …”

In another exchange, Laughton appears to admit having raped a child with Groves

“I was asking because I know we’ve had some back-and-forth, and I know we initially said we do nothing with kids ever again, and you said you were afraid that if we had kids if they would go back and tell the parents the same with the kids you work with,” Laughton texted to Groves.

Laughton, born Barry Laughton, is a biological male who identifies as female. Laughton became New Hampshire’s first transgender elected official in 2012, and the first transgender elected official to be forced to resign.

Laughton was forced out weeks after the 2012 election after it was learned he was still on probation on a felony theft charge. Laughton has also been charged with stalking and making bomb threats. None of that prevented New Hampshire state Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley from praising Laughton as part of “the backbone of the Granite State” in 2022.

Laughton was married for many years to Lisa Laughton, the alleged co-conspirator in a 2008 fraud case that resulted in the felony conviction that temporarily derailed Laughton’s political career. Laughton has also conducted a long-term sexual relationship with Groves. Both Groves and Lisa Laughton are biological women. 

And, Hillsborough County officials confirm, Laughton is being housed with the jail’s male population.

“She cannot get back the life that was stolen from her.”

And that’s why Amanda Stewart of Jaffrey is suing her former endocrinologist Dr. John Turco, along with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health and others, who she says misled her into inappropriate “gender-affirming” surgeries and treatments that left her in pain and have ruined her life.

“Instead of protecting and properly treating Amanda, who was and remains an extremely vulnerable and unstable individual, these doctors and health care providers, and the organizations and facilities at which they worked, harmed her deeply under the pretense of providing so-called ‘gender-affirming  care,’” according to the lawsuit filed in Hillsborough Superior Court — South last week.

The suit names Turco, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Cheshire Medical Center, Monadnock Family Services, and several individual doctors for years of alleged malpractice Stewart says have “harmed her deeply.”

“She will never be able to conceive and bear a child. Even if she could conceive a child, she would never be able to breastfeed her child. She lives in daily pain from the effects of the unnecessary surgeries and years of taking enormous amounts of cross-sex hormones,” according to the lawsuit. “She will never look the same and has to deal daily with severe alterations to her female body, such as bone structure and unwanted body and facial hair. She cannot get back the life that was stolen from her.”

Josh Payne, with the Texas law firm Campbell Miller Payne, said Stewart wants the healthcare system held accountable for misleading her for more than a decade and changing her life for the worse.

“Amanda’s story is a heart-wrenching representation of the negligence and lack of proper procedure in the practice of so-called ‘gender-affirming care,’” Payne said.

Stewart had a troubled early life, starting when her mother died when she was 14. Stewart, who is autistic, struggled with anxiety, depression, and loneliness throughout her teen years, according to the lawsuit. That was made worse when she ended up in a group home for a period of time, according to the lawsuit.

She started seeing Turco in 2007 when she was 22, and he immediately started pushing gender-affirming care without proper consent or full disclosure of the potential impacts, according to the lawsuit. Start’s lawsuit claims Turco never gave her any other choice.

“Defendants recognized that Amanda was mentally fragile and suffering, such that she would not be an appropriate candidate for so-called gender transition medicalization under any criteria, but they proceeded to medicalize and operate on her anyway,” the lawsuit states. “Indeed, on or about December 11, 2007, Dr. Turco wrote to a counselor Amanda had seen and a primary care doctor for Amanda, stating, ‘I am really worried that [Amanda] does mostly suffer at the present time from some psychological issues other than [her] gender identity issues.’”

But Turco soon had her taking massive quantities of testosterone, bringing her level far above those of biological men, according to the lawsuit. 

“[I]n July 2011, Dr. Turco noted that Amanda’s testosterone level was ‘very high at 2,640 ng/dl with the normal adult male range being 241-827,’” the lawsuit states.

Stewart suffered several mental health crises, some resulting in stays in the New Hampshire Hospital, as her physiological symptoms worsened while taking testosterone, the lawsuit states. Throughout her time with Turco, he made several notes that her symptoms improved when she stopped taking the hormone, and yet he continued to prescribe it in high dosages, according to the lawsuit. 

She would go on, under Turco’s care, to get a double mastectomy as well as a hysterectomy and oophorectomy, to remove her uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. She also had a procedure to close her vagina, according to the lawsuit.

Turco is known as a progressive advocate promoting sex reassignment procedures, receiving a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for social justice from Dartmouth last year.

But according to the lawsuit, Turco and other doctors who saw Stewart ignored the medical standards for gender-affirming care, such as the “Benjamin criteria,” which state cross-sex hormones “should not be administered without adequate psychological and medical assessment before and during treatment” and that problems should be well-controlled. 

“Yet these criteria were not remotely met in Amanda’s case according to the medical records produced prior to Plaintiff filing this lawsuit. “Amanda was not receiving testosterone with adequate psychological and medical assessment before and during treatment, and her problems were not well-controlled,” the lawsuit states.

These procedures were done without the psychological referrals necessary under the Benjamin criteria standards, according to the lawsuit. In fact, both surgeons who performed the procedures noted her impaired mental state when they saw her prior to the surgeries, according to the lawsuits.

Turco did not begin to question if Stewart was mentally competent to make decisions about her gender until 2016, after years of testosterone treatment and the surgeries. That was when Stewart had stopped taking the testosterone and stopped identifying as a man.

“Dr. Turco also noted that Amanda was not then living as a ‘transmale.’ Dr. Turco noted his belief that Amanda’s ‘underlying psychological issues’ made it ‘very hard for [her] to understand, evaluate and implement exactly what is [her] gender identity.’ Despite these observations, Dr. Turco continued to prescribe testosterone to Amanda,” the lawsuit states.

None of the doctors or counselors who saw Stewart questioned the care until she saw psychologist Dr. Carey Bluhm in 2019. At the time, Turco and staff at Dartmouth were pushing her to get more surgery.

“Dr. Bluhm expressed to Dr. Turco’s office his concerns that Amanda had Asperger’s and admitted to having ‘delusional events.’ Dr. Bluhm also expressed ‘reservations’ about additional plastic surgery procedures Dartmouth-Hitchcock staff had been meeting with Amanda about,” the lawsuit states.

Turco began acknowledging in 2021 that Stewart is, in fact, a woman despite the surgeries. In 2022, after she was taken to the hospital with suicidal ideation, Turco noted the testosterone treatments had “complications.”

Dartmouth Health did not respond to a request for comment. 

For state Rep. Keith Ammon (R-New Boston), Tuesday’s ruling striking down the state’s anti-discrimination in education law meant one thing.

“Judge Barbadoro just put stopping Critical Race Theory back on the ballot in November.”

New Hampshire Democrats, teachers unions, and the state chapter of the ACLU all celebrated United States District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro’s decision to declare the law unconstitutional. The Right to Freedom from Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education law — often referred to by the judge and its critics as the “divisive concepts” law — was passed in 2021 in response to concerns about Critical Race Theory (CRT) content in classrooms. It barred any public employee from teaching or training others that race, sex, or other inherent characteristics made an individual racist, sexist, etc.

Democrats are delighted to see the law go.

“I am pleased that Judge Barbadoro recognized today what the Senate Democrats have said for years: the Republican’s ‘divisive concepts’ law is an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of Granite Staters,” said state Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy (D-Manchester).

And both Democrats running for governor confirmed Ammon’s prediction that the ruling would result in a partisan political battle.

Former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig promised to shut down any Republican who tries to revive the law.

“As governor, I’ll stop any bill that threatens teachers’ ability to teach and prevents students from receiving an honest education,” Craig said.

Her fellow Democratic candidate for governor, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, said the law “sought to undermine public education by subjecting educators to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement and penalties. I am relieved to see the court’s ruling today declaring this law unconstitutional.”

And House Democratic Leader Rep. Matt Wilhelm (D-Manchester) linked the law to GOP-backed legislation for keeping boys out of girls’ bathrooms and off of girls-only sports teams.

“Make no mistake—the Republican Party will stop at nothing to infringe upon our children’s freedom with nonsensical culture wars like their “divisive concepts” ban, book bans, sports bans, and bathroom bans,” Wilhelm said.

But Republicans blasted the ruling. Sen. Tim Lang (R-Sanbornton) said it will allow teachers to promote racist CRT-inspired ideology in public classrooms.

“Seems odd the court thinks it’s OK to allow teachers to teach, based on your race, you are inherently a victim or a perpetrator of racism. Which is what the ‘divisive concepts’ law prohibited, no person is inherently racist based on race,” Lang said. 

Chuck Morse, who’s running in the GOP primary for governor, helped craft the legislation and get it to Gov. Chris Sununu’s desk. He said he will work to push through a law that passes constitutional muster if elected.

“We must equip our students with the tools to think critically and engage with each other respectfully, without the influence of biased and discriminatory teachings,” Morse said. “My administration will prioritize transparency, and adherence to constitutional principles to ensure that any new legislation will stand up to judicial scrutiny and serve the best interests of our students.”

Teachers union president Deb Howes with the New Hampshire American Federation of Teachers disagrees, saying Tuesday’s ruling should be the end of the lesson. 

“This decision should put to rest the issue, and New Hampshire teachers will no longer have to live under a cloud of fear of getting fired for actually teaching accurate, honest education.” Howes said. 

Ironically, the ruling may boost support for the Education Freedom Account program Howes and her Democratic allies oppose. Parents who discover they can’t prevent their children from being labeled “racist” or “privileged” by their local public school may turn to the EFA program to send their kids elsewhere.

Before the law passed, CRT-based content was being used in school districts like Manchester, Laconia, and Litchfield. However, there is no record of any teacher or administrator being subjected to enforcement under the law.

Manchester School District’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Director Christina Kim Philibotte and Andres Mejia, the former DEI director at SAU 16, said the ruling will let teachers get back to caring for “students of color, students from the LGBTQ+ community, and students with historically marginalized identities.”

“It is critically important that students see themselves in the books they read and in the classroom discussions they have to ensure that they feel cared for and valued,” Philibotte and Mejia said in a joint statement.