A federal judge in New Hampshire is siding with a local school district in preventing parents from wearing armbands on school property in support of biological girls-only sports.

In September, the parents wore pink-colored “XX” wristbands during a high school soccer game where transgender athlete Parker Tirrell, now 16, was playing on an opposing team. The wristbands referenced the sex chromosomes associated with biological females.

The protest led to Bow and Dunbarton School Districts Superintendent Marcy Kelley issuing a notice of trespass against parents Anthony and Nicole Foote, along with Kyle Fellers and Eldon Rash, according to the New Hampshire Journal.

Parker Tirrell, a transgender athlete who plays on her high school’s girls’ soccer team, practices in the driveway of her family home on Friday, March 7, 2025 in Plymouth, New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Fellers and Foote testified that they had not intended to harass or otherwise target a transgender player on the opposing team, but the school district said differently. The group of parents had also not protested at any previous game.

In the days leading up to the game, another parent told school officials that she had overheard others talk about showing up to the game wearing dresses and heckling the transgender player.

“When we suspect there’s some sort of threat . . . we don’t wait for it to happen,” Kelley said previously.

In February, the parents asked the court to rule that they be allowed to wear pink wristbands at the spring games to protest transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports. Their request for a preliminary injection was denied, and the court has yet to rule on the request to wear the pink wristbands at all school sporting events, per the Concord Monitor. 

President Donald Trump signs the No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order into law in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2025. The order seeks to ban transgender girls and women from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)

Del Kolde, a senior attorney for the Institute for Free Speech and one of the attorneys representing the parents, said he strongly disagrees with the court’s opinion issued denying their request for a preliminary injunction.

“This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom,” Kolde said in a statement to the outlet. “Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be ‘trans-exclusionary’.”

After the ruling was issued, the plaintiffs filed a notice saying they do not intend to enter more evidence before the judge makes a final decision.

The decision comes just weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Fox News’ Ryan Morik, Paulina Dedaj, Landon Mion, Jackson Thompson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.