In a ruling last week, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals moved to overturn a New Hampshire court’s ruling by finding that Bow School District’s decision to remove several parents from a high school soccer game and ban them from future games for protesting a transgender female athlete amounted to viewpoint discrimination.
As reported by the New Hampshire Bulletin, the parents wore wristbands opposing transgender female athletes from participating in girls’ sports.
“While the school district may make predictive judgments about whether disruption may occur and ‘need not be certain of its forecast,’ it cannot use those projections to immediately suppress a passive, silent protest that did not impair any of the legitimate school administration interests recognized by the Supreme Court,” wrote Judge Sandra Lynch in the majority opinion delivered Aug. 26.
All three judges ruled to overturn a 2025 U.S. District Court of New Hampshire ruling that sided with the school district, but one circuit court judge, Julie Rikelman, disagreed with the reasons the majority used to get to its ruling.
"The decision is the latest legal setback for transgender rights advocates," wrote the Bulletin's Ethan Dewitt. "In July, two New Hampshire transgender female athletes who had sued to strike down a 2024 state law barring female transgender athletes from girls’ sports teams in grades 5 to 12 withdrew their lawsuit, after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of similar laws in Idaho and West Virginia."
This week’s decision also comes after the Legislature passed a law to pare back a school district’s ability to issue no-trespass orders, Dewitt added.
House Bill 1184, which takes effect Oct. 18, requires school districts and municipalities to obtain the approval of their full governing body — such as their select board or school board — before issuing a “no-trespass” order against a person. While New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte vetoed that bill, calling it “unworkable” for local officials and police departments, the House and Senate overturned the veto nearly unanimously Aug. 19.
