If you are a parent - at least, if you are a good parent - you want your kids to have the best educational and social opportunities possible. That includes participating in sports if they so choose, and if they do, those sports should be contested on a (literal and figurative) level playing field. But the playing fields for school sports are not always level, not any longer. The advent of gender ideology and the resulting practice of allowing "transgender girls" to play on girls' sports teams have done away with that fundamental fairness.
In New Hampshire, a concerned father has been banned from school grounds for expressing his concern about this practice.
That father, Anthony Foote, has been banned (temporarily) from school grounds, which means he can't watch his daughter's soccer games. His infraction? He and several other parents wore "XX" armbands to a soccer game to protest the presence of a boy on the opposing girls' soccer team. Foote and at least one other parent were served with trespass notices for their protest:
Anthony Foote of Bow, New Hampshire, told the New Hampshire Journal he received a notice of trespass from Bow and Dunbarton School Districts Superintendent Marcy Kelley after he wore armbands in support of girls-only sports to his daughter’s high school soccer game Tuesday.
"My daughter’s playing in the homecoming game this weekend, and I’m banned until the 23rd," Foote told the publication. "I can’t watch her play in homecoming, which is ridiculous."
So, Foote was not only banned for expressing an opinion - in seeming violation of the First Amendment, since the school system is administered by a branch of government - he has also been banned for protesting against a practice that is unfair to the girls on his daughter's team, that being the presence of a "transgender girl" - a boy - on the opposing team. This is a hideously unfair practice; Foote and his fellow parents were justified in protesting the boy's presence on a girls' team, and they are now being punished for speaking out. There is no other way you can view this.
The issue began when several parents complained to Bow High School Athletic Director Mike Desilets after they learned a player from Plymouth Regional High School was a biological male playing for the girls varsity team.
According to the report, some parents arrived at Tuesday’s game wearing the armbands, but the game was stopped and school officials demanded the armbands be removed. The report states Foote and at least one other parent were issued "police-enforced ‘no trespassing’ orders."
This is, of course, not only a First Amendment issue - again, this is a government school - but it's a gross overreaction on the part of the Bow and Dunbarton School District. The parents were not waving signs, shouting, or trying to block the boy from playing. They were wearing armbands. That's all. Armbands. And for this, they have been banned from future games, and accused of threatening the boy in question.
Granted, K-12 schools have historically been a First Amendment gray area. But this might make a great test case; parents hit with a trespass warning for engaging in a peaceful protest, especially given the rather hysterical nature of the trespass notice:
A copy of the notice obtained by the New Hampshire Journal accused Foote of leading a protest that "was designed to and had the effect of intimidating, threatening, harassing, and discouraging" the student on the opposing team.
Seriously? "Intimidating, threatening, harassing, and discouraging"? By wearing an armband?
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This seems like a First Amendment issue waiting to be tried in court. The schools are financed and operated by a branch of local government. School grounds are public property. People can be barred from school grounds, but nobody should be so barred for a peaceful protest. Anthony Foote and his compatriots were not engaged in any outrageous, threatening, or tumultuous behavior. They were not shouting threats or throwing things; they were not burning LGBTQ+ flags. They were wearing armbands, and the supposedly radical notion they were protesting was keeping girls' sports for girls. Their act, as far as can be ascertained from this report, was the very definition of a peaceful protest.
This action by the school district is a massive overreaction to parents with legitimate concerns about the fairness of allowing a boy to play on a girls' sports team. It's unfair. It's unreasonable. It's arguably a violation of the First Amendment. And once again, it all sprang from the hideously unfair practice of allowing boys to compete on girls' sports teams.
