A New Hampshire high school banned two parents from its grounds after they wore wristbands protesting boys participating in girls’ sports. Two months later, the school remained adamant about its decision in a court hearing on Friday.
The controversy began in September when parents complained to the Bow High School athletic director about their daughters’ soccer team having to compete against a team with a boy on the roster, the New Hampshire Journal reported.
“Where’s your courage? Where’s your integrity? Stand up for real women or get out of the way,” soccer dad Anthony Foote wrote in an email to athletic director Mike Desilets.
When the school told the parents nothing could be done because of the federal judge’s ruling that the word “girl” included males who identified as females, the parents took a stand at the next game on Sept. 17.
Multiple parents wore bright pink wristbands which read “XX,” of course implying the fact that girls have two x chromosomes.
Officials stopped the game, demanding the parents remove the wristbands.
Police issued “No Trespassing” letters to Foote and fellow soccer dad Kyle Fellers.
Foote said he was banned from the school until Sept. 23, which meant missing his daughter’s homecoming soccer game.
Superintendent of Schools Marcy Kelley signed the order, saying the pink wristbands violated the school’s policy against “threatening, harassing, or intimidating … any person.”
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Kelley added that the wristbands violated its policy “that no person shall ‘impede, delay, disrupt or otherwise interfere with any school activity.’”
“The District had to obtain additional police presence to ensure order. The District had to order you to remove the armbands and as a result of your ‘protest’ and other actions, play was temporarily stopped,” Kelley said.
Foote, his wife, Fellers and other parents filed a lawsuit against multiple school administrators, including Kelley and Desilets, according to Fox News.
The parents testified Thursday at a hearing in the United States District Court in Concord, New Hampshire.
Foote said that the protesters hadn’t intended to harass or target anyone, merely protest the participation of men in women’s sports.
“I don’t care what Parker wants to do with his life,” Foote told the New Hampshire Journal. “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.”
Kelley and Desilets claimed otherwise, saying the protests wouldn’t stop with the wristbands, citing strongly worded emails to school administrators and social media posts encouraging other parents to attend and protest the game.
One parent reportedly told school officials hearsay of plans to heckle the “transgender” player on the other team — male Parker Tirrell.
The protesters were supposedly going to wear dresses and make fun of Tirrell.
“When we suspect there’s some sort of threat . . . we don’t wait for it to happen,” Kelley said at the hearing Friday.
Tirrell and another student had previously challenged the state law prohibiting boys from participating in girls’ sports — HB 1205.
The judge ruled that the players could temporarily participate in the games during the ongoing lawsuit, Fox News reported.
At that time, Tirrell’s next game would be the Sept. 17 game in question, in which he played nearly the whole game, the New Hampshire Journal reported.
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