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Bow, N.H. school district banned two parents from campus over anti-trans-athlete protest wristbands

On September 17, 2024, during a Bow High School girls' soccer game, Bow, New Hampshire school officials ordered parents Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote to remove pink "XX" wristbands worn in silent protest of a transgender athlete's participation, paused the game, and called police to remove those who refused to comply; the district later banned both men from school property and games with no-trespass orders. Superintendent Marcy Kelley testified she viewed the "XX" symbol itself as "anti-trans" and "exclusionary." On August 26, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a district court ruling and found the district likely engaged in viewpoint discrimination, holding the protest was passive and non-disruptive and remanding the case.

Jurisdiction
Bow School District
Location
Bow, New Hampshire

Abuses documented

Actors

  • Bow School District
  • Marcy Kelley (Bow School District Superintendent)

On September 17, 2024, during a girls' soccer game between Bow High School and Plymouth Regional High School, Bow, New Hampshire school officials ordered two parents, Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote, to remove pink "XX" wristbands they were wearing in silent protest of a transgender athlete's participation on the opposing team. Officials paused the game for roughly fifteen minutes to enforce the order and called police to remove spectators who declined to comply. The district later issued no-trespass orders banning Fellers and Foote from school property and school events, characterizing the wristband protest as "intimidating, threatening, harassing and discouraging." Superintendent Marcy Kelley testified that she viewed the "XX" symbol -- typically understood to reference the sex chromosomes associated with biological females -- as "anti-trans" and "exclusionary."

Fellers and Foote, joined by two other family members, sued the Bow School District, its staff, and Kelley in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, alleging the district's actions violated their First Amendment rights. A district court judge initially sided with the school, ruling that officials had acted reasonably and that the district's actions did not constitute viewpoint discrimination.

Updates

2026-08-26 — First Circuit reversed, found likely viewpoint discrimination [1, 2]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the district court's ruling and remanded the case, finding the parents had established a likelihood of success on their viewpoint-discrimination claim. The panel found no evidence the silent protest caused any disruption before officials intervened and no evidence any player even saw the wristbands, undercutting the district's harassment and Title IX rationales. The judges wrote that school administrators "cannot favor one side of a debate involving parental speech on an issue of prominent public concern." The Institute for Free Speech, representing the parents, said further proceedings would address interim relief; the school district could not be reached for comment.

Why we recorded this

When a government institution silences one side of a political debate while leaving the other alone, it forfeits its claim to viewpoint-neutral rules. Bow, New Hampshire school officials ordered two parents to remove silent anti-transgender-athlete-participation protest wristbands, paused a school sporting event to enforce that order, and later banned the parents from campus -- while the district's own superintendent testified she viewed the symbol itself as objectionable. A federal appeals court later found the district's conduct likely amounted to viewpoint discrimination against protected speech. This archive records that a public school punished parents for what they silently expressed, not for any disruption they caused.

Sources

  1. Federal court sides with Bow parents in transgender-athlete free speech case — NHPR / Concord Monitor (Granite State News Collaborative) investigative accessed August 28, 2026
  2. High schools ordering parents to remove pink "XX" protest wristbands at girls soccer game likely violated First Amendment — Reason (The Volokh Conspiracy) primary accessed August 28, 2026

See also