A First Amendment case involving the Bow School District will be heard in a Massachusetts courtroom this week, following a New Hampshire federal judge’s decision to deny the parents’ request to be allowed to protest silently at sports games.
The dispute began in September 2024, when Bow parents Anthony and Nicole Foote, along with Kyle Fellers and Eldon Rash, sued the Bow School District, its staff and Superintendent Marcy Kelley.
The parents argued their constitutional rights were violated after the district issued no-trespass orders against them for wearing pink wristbands marked “XX” at a girls’ soccer game to represent their opposition to transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports.
The parents are appealing the denial of their request to continue wearing the “XX” symbol while their case went through court. U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe rejected that request on April 14.
“The broader and more demeaning/harassing message the School District understood plaintiffs’ ‘XX’ symbols to convey was, in context, entirely reasonable,” wrote McAuliffe, siding with the school district.
In their appeal, the parents said that McAuliffe incorrectly applied standards meant for students to parents.
Represented by the Institute for Free Speech, the parents argue that the district’s actions amount to “viewpoint discrimination.”
The wristbands were intended as a silent protest against the participation of transgender athletes on girls’ teams, with the “XX” symbol representing the sex chromosomes assigned to females at birth.
In a court document, attorneys for the school district wrote that the protest against transgender athletes on school grounds amounts to “targeting and intimidation” of students.
The school district also wrote that the wristbands worn “risked poisoning the educational atmosphere.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit will hear oral arguments at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 5, in Boston’s Moakley Courthouse.