New Hampshire dads who protested transgender athletes by wearing pink wristbands score court victory

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Two fathers who oppose allowing transgender athletes to play high school sports will be allowed to wear pink wristbands marked “XX” to games, a federal judge said Thursday in an order ending more than two years of litigation.

Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote sued the Bow school district after they were banned from school grounds for wearing the wristbands to a 2024 soccer game that included a transgender girl on the opposing team.

In a dismissal order Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe said the men have a First Amendment right to silently wear the wristbands and that school officials violated it. Under a settlement agreement, the district’s risk pool will pay $225,000 to the Institute for Free Speech, which represented the men in court, and $50,000 to the men's attorney. The plaintiffs will each get $17.91, an amount that symbolizes the year states ratified the First Amendment.

Fellers said he missed half of his daughter’s soccer games during her senior year because he stood up for what he believes in. The wristbands were marked “XX” to represent female chromosomes.

“It took more than two years, but the court has recognized that what happened to us was wrong,” he said in a statement.

School officials argued the district had a duty to protect students from harassment from adults on school grounds. They said Foote had called himself a “real leader” who was prepared to take action, and that another parent overheard others talk about heckling the transgender athlete. Both men testified at a hearing that they didn’t intend to harass or otherwise target the player.

The court had previously blocked the men from wearing the wristbands while the case proceeded, but a federal appeals court later ruled in their favor, finding that school officials “cannot favor one side of a debate involving parental speech on an issue of prominent public concern.”

“Parents don't surrender their First Amendment rights when they walk into a high school soccer game,” said Endel Kolde, attorney for the Institute for Free Speech.

An attorney for the school district did not respond to an email seeking comment.