An appeals court has ruled in favor of parents in New Hampshire who wore wristbands to protest a transgender athlete’s participation in a girls’ soccer game, finding their actions constituted a passive and non-disruptive form of expression protected under the First Amendment.

The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision on August 26, reversing a lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction that sought to prevent Bow High School officials from barring the parents from school property and events during ongoing litigation. The high school is located just south of Concord, New Hampshire.

The parents, including Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote, challenged the school district’s no-trespass orders after they wore wristbands marked “XX” — a reference to female sex chromosomes — at a September 2024 soccer game. The game featured Parker Tirrell, a transgender student who was legally permitted to participate on the girls’ soccer team under a preliminary injunction issued in a separate lawsuit challenging a state law barring transgender athletes from competing based on biological sex.

According to the appeals court, the wristbands were distributed quietly and displayed without shouting or other disruptive behavior. The court noted that the parents did not confront any players, and there was no evidence that the players even noticed the wristbands. Following requests from the school’s athletic director and principal, and intervention from local law enforcement, the parents and a family member were ordered to remove the wristbands or leave the game. When the refusal continued, the referee halted the game until the wristband was taken off.

Subsequently, Bow School District issued no-trespass orders barring the parents, as well as a family member, from attending school events. The group filed a lawsuit against the district, school officials, the local police department, and the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association.

In 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire sided with the school district, concluding its policies were viewpoint-neutral and aligned with educational goals. The district court found the protest targeted a specific transgender athlete and demeaned an immutable aspect of the athlete’s identity.

However, the appeals court took a different view, stating the wristband protest was a “passive, silent gesture” that did not involve any form of harassment or disruption. It found a “reasonable likelihood” that the school’s actions constituted unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and sent the case back to the district court for further examination.

Del Kolde, senior attorney at the Institute for Free Speech representing the families, said the ruling affirms parents’ rights to peacefully express their views on controversial issues, emphasizing that schools cannot permit expressions supporting one side of a political debate while banning silent protests on the other.

The case highlights ongoing tensions surrounding participation of transgender athletes in school sports, a subject of legal and social debate in several U.S. states.

Attempts to obtain comments from Bow School District and other involved officials were unsuccessful.