A New Hampshire school district banned two dads from attending their daughters’ varsity soccer games after they donned pink “XX” wristbands during a match-up against a high school with a male-to-female transgender athlete.
The Bow School District slapped Anthony Foote and Kyle Fellers with “no trespass” orders, accusing them of leading protests against the transgender player on the Plymouth Regional High School team by wearing and distributing wristbands at the Sept. 17 game.
“The protest was designed to and had the effect of intimidating, threatening, harassing, and discouraging that student as well as other students from playing,” said the Sept. 19 letter to Fellers from Superintendent Marcy Kelley, as shown on the NHJournal website.
The Bow High School dads deny protesting, saying they wore the pink “XX” wristbands as a show of support for female athletes. The "XX" symbol refers to female chromosomes.
“I was there to support the girls. I don’t even know where they come up with the term ‘protest.’ I wanted to show my support for girls as athletes, and for their rights to compete,” Fellers told NHJournal. “In my opinion, I honestly believe what they’re doing will destroy girls’ sport.”
He said school officials confronted him at the game and told him to remove the wristband, but when he did, other parents put them on and refused to take them off. Police got involved, and the referees temporarily halted the game.
The transgender player, 15-year-old Parker Tirrell, has been able to compete in girls’ soccer even though New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed a bill in July banning boys from competing in girls’ scholastic sports in grades 5-12.
That’s because a federal judge blocked the law last month with a temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit filed by two transgender athletes — including Tirrell.
U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty, an Obama appointee, said that playing on the boys’ soccer team was “not a realistic option for Parker,” and that excluding the player from the girls’ team “would cause immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm.”
The now-banned parents are also concerned about harm, namely to their daughters.
“I don’t care what Parker wants to do with his life,” Foote told the NHJournal. “What I do care about is that my daughter could be physically hurt, maybe not by Parker because he’s not the biggest kid on the field. But there’s a chance that next time will be different.”
The district’s “no trespass” order against Foote expired Sept. 23, although Fellers has been banned for “the remainder of the fall sports season.”
The situation may be ripe for a free-speech lawsuit against the district. Both fathers have reportedly talked to lawyers.
Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, pointed to Tinker v. Des Moines, the 1969 Supreme Court decision holding that a school district’s ban on students wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War was unconstitutional.
“Um, the Supreme Court said this was a First Amendment violation over 50 years ago in the context of black armbands/Vietnam,” said Mr. Shapiro on X.
New Hampshire is no stranger to high-profile male-to-female transgender athletes. Maelle Jacques, a junior at Kearsarge Regional High School in North Sutton, is the reigning girls’ outdoor track state champion in the high jump.
Transgender rights groups argue that students must be permitted to compete based on gender identity in the name of inclusion, while foes counter that allowing biological males in female sports is both unsafe and unfair.
The apparently unrepentant Foote continued to drum up enthusiasm for the girls’ soccer team in a cheeky post Tuesday on Facebook.
“As we continue to support our BOW LADY FALCONS,” he said, “I ask that everyone go peacefully and patriotically to every game!”
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