{"id":1110,"date":"2025-04-15T17:09:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T17:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/?p=1110"},"modified":"2025-04-16T22:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T22:49:20","slug":"judge-rules-against-parents-who-wore-wristbands-to-protest-transgender-student-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/judge-rules-against-parents-who-wore-wristbands-to-protest-transgender-student-athlete\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rules against parents\u00a0who wore wristbands to protest transgender student athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A federal judge ruled Monday that two fathers cannot wear pink wristbands with two X\u2019s \u2014 the symbol for female chromosomes \u2014 drawn on them in opposition to a transgender high school athlete on one of their daughters\u2019 rival soccer teams. <\/p>\n

Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote sued administrators at Bow High School in south-central New Hampshire last year after they were banned from school property for wearing the wristbands to a match against Plymouth Regional High School, whose girls team includes a transgender player, 16-year-old Parker Tirrell. They asked a federal district court to allow them to silently wear the wristbands and display signs objecting to trans athletes in girls sports at school events. <\/p>\n

Officials temporarily barred both men from school grounds for distributing and refusing to remove the wristbands during the Sept. 17 game between Bow and Plymouth Regional. Foote also placed a poster that read \u201cProtect Women\u2019s Sports for Female Athletes\u201d on his Jeep and held the sign up in the parking lot after the game ended. <\/p>\n

According to court documents, Fellers and Foote previously discussed with other Bow parents the possibility of more vocally protesting the match once they learned their daughters would be competing against a transgender girl. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe plans discussed reportedly included wearing dresses to the game, buying anti-trans gear, making signs, and generally heckling and intimidating the player,\u201d Bow High School Athletic Director Michael Desilets wrote in a declaration<\/a> to the court in October. <\/p>\n

In the days leading up to the game, Fellers, according to court documents, purchased \u201ca large number of pink wristbands\u201d and gave them to Foote, who used a black magic marker to adorn each one with either \u201cXX,\u201d the female gender symbol \u2014 a circle above a cross \u2014 or the acronym \u201cNAD,\u201d which Foote said meant \u201cnot a dude.\u201d <\/p>\n

Marcy Kelley, superintendent of schools for SAU 67, which includes the Bow School District, testified during a hearing in November that the \u201cXX\u201d symbol, when used in the context of transgender athletes, \u201cconveys a well-understood anti-trans message.\u201d <\/p>\n

She noted that Riley Gaines, a conservative activist who campaigns against the inclusion of transgender athletes in girls and women\u2019s sports, uses the \u201cXX\u201d symbol in her social media posts, clothing line and speaking engagements. According to court filings, Fellers and Foote often reference Gaines in their social media posts and on their signs and posters. <\/p>\n

Kelley said she and other school officials believed Fellers and Foote\u2019s protest targeted a single player, violating the Bow High athletic handbook and a school board policy regulating public conduct on school property. Tirrell is the only transgender player on Plymouth Regional High School\u2019s girls soccer team. <\/p>\n

Kelley added that she was not troubled by Fellers and Foote\u2019s opinions on trans athletes but was concerned about protecting an individual student from being the sole subject of a protest. \u201cThis was organized and targeted,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Fellers and Foote testified in November that they did not intend to harass or target Tirrell. Attorneys for the two men avoided describing their actions as \u201cprotest,\u201d instead characterizing it as a \u201cpassive statement of support for women\u2019s athletics.\u201d <\/p>\n

But in denying their motion Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, said the parents\u2019 \u201cnarrow, plausibly inoffensive\u201d intentions cannot be separated from the broader context. He added that adults attending high school events do not enjoy a First Amendment protected right to speech that demeans students. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe message generally ascribed to the XX symbol, in a context such as that presented here, can reasonably be understood as directly assaulting those who identify as transgender women,\u201d McAuliffe wrote in his ruling. \u201cBeyond \u2018I oppose your participation,\u2019 the message can reasonably be understood to include assertions that there are \u2018only two genders,\u2019 and those who identify as something other than male or female are wrong and their gender identities are false, inauthentic, nonexistent, and not entitled to respect.\u201d <\/p>\n

School authorities, McAuliffe wrote, \u201cwere duty bound\u201d to protect Tirrell and any transgender students attending the game from \u201cthe harassment, intimidation, and anxiety likely to follow\u201d the parents\u2019 actions. <\/p>\n

Del Kolde, an attorney for the plaintiffs at the Institute for Free Speech, said the group strongly disagrees with McAuliffe\u2019s ruling. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom,\u201d Kolde said in an email. \u201cBow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be \u2018trans-exclusionary.\u2019 We are still evaluating our options for next steps.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

New Hampshire in July became the first state in the Northeast<\/a> to ban transgender student-athletes from participating on girls and women\u2019s sports teams. In August, a federal judge allowed Tirrell and another student, 15-year-old Iris Turmelle, to continue playing<\/a> on their respective schools\u2019 girls teams while challenging the ban in court. <\/p>\n

The same judge, U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty, appointed by former President Obama, allowed Tirrell and Turmelle to add the Trump administration<\/a> to their lawsuit after President Trump signed an executive order<\/a> to ban transgender athletes from girls and women\u2019s sports nationwide. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge ruled Monday that two fathers cannot wear pink wristbands with two X\u2019s \u2014 the symbol for female chromosomes \u2014 drawn on them in opposition to a transgender high school athlete on one of their daughters\u2019 rival soccer teams.  Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote sued administrators at Bow High School in south-central New Hampshire last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1111,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions\/1111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}