An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday aimed at barring transgender girls and women from participating on female sports teams has already had a tangible effect on at least one local school district.

Leaders in the Kearsarge Regional School District – which had previously declined to follow a similar state ban – have “adjusted practices internally” since the Trump order, Superintendent John Fortney confirmed in a brief interview on Thursday. 

“We’ll follow the directives given by Title IX,” Fortney said, though he declined to say how the adjustment would affect specific students.

Kearsarge Regional is one of three school districts in the state that has a transgender girl who has publicly indicated she wishes to play on a girls’ team.

In August, the district’s school board voted not to follow the new state law – which bars transgender girls from grades five through 12 from playing on girls’ school sports teams – citing its potential conflict with Title IX and the U.S. constitution.

At the time of that decision, the Biden administration had recently issued new rules expanding the definition of Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The Trump order called on the Department of Education to reverse that definition change and to withdraw federal funding from any school that refused to comply.

On Thursday, a day after the order was issued, the U.S. Department of Education announced it was investigating Massachusetts’ interscholastic sports association for potential violations stemming from a girls basketball game last year in which a transgender student participated, the Boston Globe reported.

The other two districts in New Hampshire – Pembroke and Pemi-Baker in the Plymouth region – that have transgender girls who have publicly said they wish to play on girls’ teams have been sued by those students. A pending preliminary order issued by a federal judge in the case bars the school districts and the state Department of Education from enforcing the state law. A trial is scheduled for November.

Chris Erchull, an attorney for the two students, said in an interview Thursday that the executive order does not strip his clients of their rights to play on the sports teams of their choice.

“This court has decided that Title IX protects the rights of LGBTQ students, including the plaintiffs in this case,” Erchull said, referring to Judge Landya McCafferty’s preliminary order. “So there’s nothing that the president can say – the president can’t change the text of Title IX and change what it means unilaterally.”

However, he acknowledged that the order and the Trump administration’s stance on transgender rights more broadly, will likely complicate the litigation process.

“We could go to trial, win our case, have a judgment from this court that says we win and then HB 1205 – the New Hampshire sports ban – is invalid, it’s unenforceable,” Erchull said. “Our clients wouldn’t have relief at the end of the day because the federal government has now stepped in.

“It very much affects how our litigation goes because now we have to – and we will – challenge this executive order,” he added.

Erchull’s clients are a sophomore at Plymouth Regional High School who plays soccer and a freshman at Pembroke Academy, who had planned to participate on the track team.

Erchull acknowledged that the executive order has placed the students’ school districts in “a very difficult position.”

“They have an order from the federal courts saying that [the students] are entitled to play school sports on the same terms and conditions as other girls,” he said. “And at the same time, they have the federal government threatening to initiate investigations and to cut funding if [they] are allowed to play.”

The New Hampshire Department of Education issued an advisory earlier this week referencing a letter to school leaders that informed them that the federal government “will return to enforcing Title IX protections based on biological sex in schools.”

Attorneys for the two school districts did not respond to requests for comment on how they will proceed.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, which is representing the Department of Education in the lawsuit, wrote in a statement that they are “reviewing the President’s Executive Order to determine any appropriate next steps.”