Bishop Brady girls soccer pulls out of game against team with trans player
The Bishop Brady High School varsity girls soccer team pulled out of their game Friday night against Kearsarge Regional High School in protest of competing against a team with a transgender player.
This is the latest fight over transgender athletes playing high school sports in New Hampshire after a new state law requiring athletes in grades 5-12 to play on teams matching the sex on their birth certificate.
Bishop Brady, a Catholic school in Concord, was set to play Kearsarge in an away game starting at 7 p.m. Friday.
The team was unable to field enough players for “multiple reasons,” David Thibault, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Manchester, said in a statement Sunday afternoon.The Kearsarge transgender player, Maelle Jacques, appealed to the Kearsarge School Board in August to continue to play on the team as a goaltender despite the new law. The families of two other trans athletes from other schools filed lawsuits in federal court in August, with a judge blocking the law from being enforced while it’s being challenged in court and allowing both athletes to play girls sportsv
“Bishop Brady HS Varsity Girls Soccer Team STANDS UP for fairness in sports! These brave athletes in Concord, NH boycotted a game with a male player on the opposing team, saying NO to unfair competition,” the group wrote. “Let’s support their courage and commitment to protecting women’s sports!”
Riley Gaines, a competitive swimmer who is behind “Project BOYcott,” posted on X, formerly Twitter, in support of the team’s actions to forfeit to the “opposing team whose star player is a man.”