This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Two school years have gone by since a group of parents sued the Bow school district after they were barred from silently protesting transgender athletes on girls’ sports teams.
With winter sports starting soon, they are asking the court to move quickly and grant them temporary permission to express themselves while the case plays out.
The case centers on pink “XX” wristbands that the parents wore to a girls’ soccer game in Sept. 2024. A transgender athlete was playing for the opposing team. In August, a federal appeals court overturned a New Hampshire district judge’s earlier refusal to let the parents wear those wristbands and protest at school games, and sent the free speech case back to the lower court.
A decision in the lower court case presided over by Judge Steven McAuliffe has yet to be made.
“The upcoming Bow girls’ soccer playoffs as well as games in the winter sports season constitute good cause to expedite consideration of the motion,” wrote the parents’ attorneys in a new filing this week. “Plaintiffs respectfully urge this court to allow them to exercise their First Amendment rights during the coming winter sports season. Continued delay is effectively a denial of their right to speak.”
Attorneys from the Institute for Free Speech are representing the parents in this case.
The winter sports season is scheduled to begin Dec. 9.
The pink wristbands worn by the parents at the game were emblazoned with the “XX” symbol, which represents the sex chromosomes assigned to females at birth.
Marcy Kelley, superintendent of the school district, testified in hearings that she viewed the “XX” symbol as “anti-trans” and “exclusionary.” Police were called to the school and the parents were told to remove the attire or leave.
The parents want the court to prevent the Bow school district from enforcing its policy against banning the display of the wristbands on the sidelines or in the parking lot of Bow High School sporting events, according to the filing.
Parents also want to display signs with the message “Protect Women’s Sports” in the parking lot of any Bow High School game.
Two parents, Anthony Foote and Kyle Fellers, were issued no-trespass orders after wearing the wristbands during the Sept. 2024 girls’ high school soccer game against Plymouth Regional School District.
McAuliffe ruled that the district acted reasonably in its decision to prevent parents from protesting.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit disagreed. In its opinion, the judges wrote that the display of XX wristbands “fell short of harassment and disruption”
Foote’s younger daughter currently attends Bow High School, where she plays girls’ soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. He said he wants to “silently but visibly protest in defense of girls’ and women’s sports” at some of these Bow sporting events by wearing a pink “XX” wristband.
Foote wrote in a filing that if the court rules in his favor, he intends to wear the wristband at the girls’ varsity soccer playoff match scheduled for early November 2026.
Without a ruling from the court, he fears that doing so could lead the district to remove him from school property and issue a new no-trespass order against him.
“I also continue to worry that protesting on the sidelines in a silent but visible way by wearing a pink wristband during this and future years could potentially cause Bow School District sports teams to forfeit games, have games suspended and become ineligible for playoffs,” Foote wrote. “If we had legal protection, I would wear the wristband.”
Source: www.nhpr.org
