Key Points:
- Parents and a grandparent wore pink “XX” wristbands during a September 2024 girls varsity soccer game at Bow High School.
- School officials ordered them to remove the wristbands and imposed additional sanctions, according to the First Circuit.
- The appeals court found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on their viewpoint-discrimination claim and sent the case back for further consideration.
BOSTON, Mass. – A federal appeals court has handed a significant victory to New Hampshire parents who were ordered to remove pink “XX” wristbands they wore while watching a girls high school soccer game involving a transgender athlete.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit concluded that Kyle Fellers, Anthony Foote and Eldon Rash established a likelihood of success on their claim that the Bow School District engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. The parents characterized their wristbands as a passive protest.
The dispute began Sept. 17, 2024, when the men attended a girls varsity soccer game at Bow High School. According to the appellate decision, school officials instructed them to remove the wristbands, and “further sanctions followed.”
First Circuit Finds Parents Likely to Succeed on Free Speech Claim
The plaintiffs argued that the Bow School District and its officials violated the First Amendment by sanctioning them for expressing their viewpoint.
They sought a preliminary injunction that would prevent the district from barring them from future girls varsity soccer games, enforcing a no-trespass order against Fellers and applying school policies in ways that suppress nondisruptive political or social expression.
The district court denied that request in April 2025, prompting the appeal.
The First Circuit reached a different conclusion on the wristbands.
“For the following reasons, we conclude that appellants have established a likelihood of success as to their viewpoint discrimination claim arising from the sanctions imposed on them for their passive speech in wearing these wristbands,” Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch wrote for the court.
The panel remanded the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire for further consideration.
The ruling does not amount to a final judgment that every claim made by the parents has been proven. Rather, the appellate court found they met the likelihood-of-success standard on the viewpoint-discrimination claim at this stage of the litigation.
Pink ‘XX’ Wristbands Were Worn During Girls Soccer Game
According to the court, Fellers, Foote and Rash were watching their daughters — or, in Rash’s case, his granddaughter — play against a team with one transgender athlete.
The men wore pink wristbands displaying “XX,” a reference to female sex chromosomes, as their protest.
Their lawsuit challenged how school officials responded to that expression, including application of the district’s public conduct policy and Bow High School Athletics Handbook.
The parents sought to prevent the district from using those rules to stop spectators at extracurricular events from “non-disruptively expressing disfavored viewpoints on political or social issues.”
Their requested injunction also targeted enforcement based on audience reaction or what the lawsuit described as a “heckler’s veto.”
The case places two contentious issues — transgender athletes in girls sports and the free-speech rights of spectators at school events — inside a broader constitutional dispute over when school officials may restrict expression on school property.
Case Returns to Federal District Court
The First Circuit’s decision sends the dispute back to the lower court rather than ending the litigation.
The appellate court specifically focused on the sanctions connected to the plaintiffs’ passive expression through the wristbands. The next proceedings will determine what relief is appropriate under the appeals court’s ruling and how the remaining issues in the case should be handled.
The case is Kyle Fellers, Anthony Foote, Nicole Foote and Eldon Rash v. Marcy Kelley and others, First Circuit case No. 25-1442.
The First Circuit found the parents likely to succeed on their viewpoint-discrimination claim.
The court’s conclusion concerned sanctions imposed over the passive act of wearing the “XX” wristbands and does not itself represent a final judgment on every issue in the lawsuit.
The dispute arose during a girls varsity soccer game involving a transgender athlete.
Three of the plaintiffs wore pink “XX” wristbands while watching their daughters or granddaughter compete and were instructed by school officials to remove them.
The case will now return to the federal district court.
The First Circuit remanded the matter for further consideration after finding the plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success on the relevant First Amendment claim.
Sources: U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit opinion in Fellers v. Kelley, No. 25-1442.
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