A transgender girl in Plymouth can continue playing on her school’s girls soccer team for at least the next two weeks despite a newly passed law prohibiting her from doing so, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

During a 90-minute hearing in U.S. District Court in Concord, Judge Landya McCafferty said that barring 15-year-old Parker Tirrell from playing on her Plymouth Regional High School team could have a “stigmatizing and shaming effect.”

“I am concerned about the irreparable harm that is done to a child when he is told that he cannot, in essence, be the person he thinks he is,” Judge McCafferty said.

Judge McCafferty also seemed poised to issue a more permanent ruling within the next two weeks that would allow both Tirrell and her co-plaintiff, 14-year-old Iris Turmelle of Pembroke, to participate in girls’ sports until the case is heard. The judge’s rulings — both on the injunction motion and at trial — will likely apply only to Tirrell and Turmelle, and not to all transgender girls in the state.

Judge McCafferty indicated that the trial could take place as early as the end of October.

Tirrell and Turmelle, who filed suit against the State Board of Education and their school districts earlier this month, have become the public faces of their opposition to a law passed in July that bans students assigned male at birth from playing on girls’ sports teams at schools in grades five through 12.

Supporters of the law, which passed the House and Senate in the spring by razor-thin majorities, argue that it is necessary to ensure fairness and safety in girls’ sports. New Hampshire is the 26th state in the country to enact such a ban, although some laws in other states have been challenged in court.

Both Tirrell and Turmelle take puberty blockers and hormone therapy that lower their testosterone levels. The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Michael DeGrandis, acknowledged that neither had “a biological advantage” in the sport.

But, DeGrandis argued in a lawsuit, the court “should not reverse the policy decisions of the legislature by judicial order.”

“There is an election coming up and there is an opportunity to either change or repeal the law if it does not meet the needs of the people of New Hampshire,” DeGrandis said in court on Tuesday.

The number of transgender girls in New Hampshire who want to play on girls’ sports teams is small—perhaps single digits, by some estimates.

McCafferty’s decision on Tuesday affects only Tirrell, while her decision on the request for a preliminary injunction – the main subject of the hearing – could affect both Tirrell and Turmelle.

While Tirrell began soccer tryouts last week and is scheduled to play her first game this week, Turmelle — an incoming freshman at Pembroke Academy — does not plan to play any sports in the fall. McCafferty is considering scheduling a tryout before Turmelle’s winter run, which begins Dec. 2.

Tirrell and Turmelle did not file a class action lawsuit because that process is more complicated and they did not have time to do so before Tirrell’s sports season began, said their attorney Chris Erchull.

However, on Tuesday, Erchull asked McCafferty to consider granting “broader remedies” – a request to which she did not comment and which the prosecutor rejected.

After the hearing, Erchull said his advocacy organization, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, is prepared to file a class action lawsuit in the future.

Tuesday’s hearing and decision followed similar hearings last week that allowed Tirrell to compete for her team and protected her Pemi-Baker Regional School District from legal consequences for violating state law. The girls filed suit on Aug. 16.

“I think it’s really exhausting to feel the uncertainty, but it’s also really hard to sit back and do nothing,” Erchull said of the families’ attitudes over the past two weeks. “I think both families have been really committed to doing everything they can to make sure their children have equal access to educational opportunities in public schools.”

Tirrell and Turmelle and their parents, all of whom were present at the hearing, did not speak to reporters Tuesday.

The superintendents of the Pemi-Baker and Pembroke school districts, who also attended Tuesday’s hearing, said they were also seeking guidance on how to proceed.

“We are stuck” between state law and individual students, said Kyla Welch, Pemi-Baker’s principal.

Last week, Education Secretary Frank Edelblut, who is also named in the lawsuit, sent a letter to school principals explaining that the new law would continue to apply to “all other students except Tirrell” in the state.

“Edelblut’s letter narrows the gap between Scylla and Charybdis, forcing school districts and school officials into the impossible position of having to choose between complying with a potentially unlawful law or refusing to do so and submitting to the commissioner’s powers and the liability imposed by the law,” Michael Eaton, an attorney for the Pembroke school district, wrote in a legal document.

The law went into effect on August 18, one day before fall sports practices and tryouts, ahead of the start of the school year that begins in the state’s school districts this week or next.

“We will continue to vigorously defend this new law and will determine next steps once the court issues its order on the motion for a preliminary injunction,” Attorney General John Formella said in a statement following Tuesday’s decision.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at [email protected]..