In a clear violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge in New Hampshire has blocked parents from silently protesting transgender athletes in girls’ sports with wristbands.
On April 14, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe sided with a local school district against parents’ First Amendment rights to protest the insanity of allowing boys to play in girls’ sports.
The case began back in September 2024, when several parents wore pink wristbands that simply read “XX,” referring to female sex chromosomes, which was part of an effort to protest allowing so-called “transgender” male athletes from competing in girls’ sports. The specific protest was related to high school student Parker Tirrell, a male who was playing on the opposing team at a girls’ high school soccer game.
Bow and Dunbarton School Districts Superintendent Marcy Kelley responded to the silent protest by issuing a notice of trespass against the parents, who have been identified as Antony and Nicole Foote, Kyle Fellers, and Eldon Rash. The order has since expired.
All of these parents responded by filing a lawsuit against the school district, highlighting how they had violated their First Amendment rights and demanding that they be allowed to wear the wristbands during school events.
McAuliffe, who was appointed by former President George H. W. Bush, has sided with the school district — claiming that protesting to protect girls’ sports using a wristband was “a demeaning or harassing message.”
“While plaintiffs may very well have never intended to communicate a demeaning or harassing message directed at Parker Tirrell or any other transgender students, the symbols and posters they displayed were fully capable of conveying such a message,” the judge wrote. “And, that broader messaging is what the school authorities reasonably understood and appropriately tried to prevent.”
“The broader and more demeaning/harassing message the School District understood plaintiffs’ ‘XX’ symbols to convey was, in context, entirely reasonable,” McAuliffe added.
Reports indicate that the parents plan to appeal the ruling, though it appears that no appeal has been filed as of April 15.
One of the attorneys representing the parents, Institute for Free Speech senior attorney Del Kolde, has stated that he vehemently disagrees with the judge’s ruling.
“This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom,” Kolde said in a statement. “Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be ‘trans-exclusionary’.”
Bow SD officials (#NH): pic.twitter.com/cutBTvjkHL
— Institute for Free Speech (@InstFreeSpeech) October 22, 2024
Meanwhile, social media users are outraged over the decision, with one user writing: “Ladies, our very CHROMOSOMES are now considered ‘demeaning’ and ‘harassing.’”
Judge rules against parents silently wearing pink XX wristbands to school soccer game.
Ladies, our very CHROMOSOMES are now considered "demeaning" and "harassing." https://t.co/iP5M2T3qik pic.twitter.com/p2iP5x34AZ
— Emily (@EKaht) April 15, 2025
“This will be overruled on appeal. There is no protection against being offended. That is incompatible with the First Amendment. We are not the UK, Germany, or other countries harass or fine people because they said hurty things,” another user wrote.
This will be overruled on appeal. There is no protection against being offended. That is incompatible with the First Amendment.
We are not the UK, Germany, or other countries harass or fine people because they said hurty things.
— Kevin Ledgister (@KevinLedgister) April 15, 2025
“So wait. You can burn a flag because of the first amendment, but not wear an armband? Judge needs to go back to law school. Or hell, middle school civics,” another user argued.
So wait. You can burn a flag because of the first amendment, but not wear an armband? Judge needs to go back to law school. Or hell, middle school civics.
— Daniel Pendergast (@tenndergast) April 15, 2025
One user highlighted a past court case from 1969 that is extremely similar to this one, but was decided in favor of protesters. The case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, affirmed that students were allowed to protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands in school. The ruling established that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Men are going to win… pic.twitter.com/rrqDic9xXE
— John Devlin (@Devlinside123) April 15, 2025
