Transgender girls have already sued two New Hampshire school districts, alleging that a newly enacted law that bars them from playing on girls’ sports teams violates their rights.

Late last week, the Kearsarge Regional School District decided it didn’t want to be the third district sued. In a move that appears to be without precedent, Kearsarge’s school board voted on Thursday to simply defy the law and instead allow transgender girls in the district to continue playing on girls’ sports teams.

The decision, which was first reported by the Boston Globe, has immediate ramifications. Maëlle Jacques, a junior at Kearsarge Regional High School and a transgender girl who has publicly opposed the new law, plays on the girls’ soccer and track teams. The district has at least one other student who the decision may affect, said superintendent John Fortney.

The board voted not to enforce the new law – which bars students assigned male at birth from playing on girls’ school sports teams from grades five through 12 – because board members believed it conflicted with federal Title IX law, as well as with another state law.

Changes to the Title IX statute, which went into effect at the beginning of last month, bar schools that receive federal funding from discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Meanwhile, a state law that went into effect in 2019 prohibits public schools from excluding students from educational opportunities on the basis of gender identity.

District leaders believed that enforcing the new state law barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ teams would take them out of compliance with the federal and state laws that prohibit gender-identity-based discrimination.

After consulting with a lawyer, they determined that ignoring the federal and state laws would expose them to the most liability, according to Fortney and School Board Chair Alison V. Mastin.

“There’s no winner on either decision you make, because you open yourself up potentially for liability on both sides,” Fortney said in an interview. “But looking at the biggest piece and the level of liability and impact, that’s kind of where the board went.”

A violation of Title IX could result in the loss of federal funding, while a violation of the new transgender sports law could result in a lawsuit from any student “who is deprived of an athletic opportunity” or suffers harm in any other way.

A spokesperson at the state attorney general’s office said that the new law “remains in effect statewide” but did not respond to a request for comment on whether the office was considering any enforcement action against the Kearsarge Regional School District, which serves the towns of Bradford, Newbury, New London, Springfield, Sutton, Warner, and Wilmot.

“We remain committed to vigorously defending this new law,” Attorney General John Formella said in a statement last month. He has signed on to an amicus brief calling on the Supreme Court to uphold a similar law in West Virginia.

The Kearsarge school board’s decision last week was a reversal of an earlier one. On Aug. 15, the board voted four to one, with three abstentions, to enforce the new law, according to minutes of the meeting.

“No matter how each of us votes, our responsibility as a board is to make the best choice for the short term to protect the district,” the board said in a statement at the time.

But in the intervening two weeks, transgender girls in Plymouth and Pembroke filed a joint lawsuit and a federal court judge temporarily blocked the new law from going into effect, allowing the Plymouth girl, Parker Tirrell, to play on her girls’ high school soccer team.

Following the onset of litigation, the school board revisited its earlier decision last week and reached a different conclusion.

“I wouldn’t tell you directly that the Tirrell case was the linchpin,” said Fortney. “I think [the board] considered everything.”

The reversal underscores the challenges school leaders face as they attempt to parse a complex legal landscape.

“You could jokingly say it’s navigating a minefield with a blindfold on,” Fortney said. “You’re trying to do the best you can. My job is based around protecting the district, insulating the district from anything; it’s not personal feelings; it’s not any belief structure there.”

Following an initial decision in the Tirrell lawsuit, Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut sent school leaders, including in the Kearsarge district, a letter stating that the new law “is still applicable to all other students” in the state besides Tirrell.

But Fortney said the letter did not address how the new law interacts with districts’ Title IX requirements.

“It wasn’t clear on that end of it,” Fortney said.

A spokesperson at the Department of Education declined to comment.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@monitor.com.