Concord, NH (AP) – Two fathers who oppose the permission of transsexual athletes athletes to play in high school sports will not be able to wear pink wrists marked “XX” of games while their court trial against the school area continues, manages a federal judge on Monday.
Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foot were banned from school playgrounds in a bow after they wore wrists on a football game in September, which included a transsexual girl in the opponent’s team. Later, they filed a lawsuit against the school neighborhood, and although the orders have expired since then, they have asked the judge to allow them to carry signs and to wear the wrists, including the symbol for female chromosomes of school events as the case continues.
Both men testified at a hearing in November that they did not intend to harass or otherwise target the transsexual athlete Parker Tirrell, and their lawyers claim that they did nothing more than silently to express their support for sports girls for births.
But by denying his proposal on Monday, US District Court judge Stephen McAoliff said that “narrow, plausible” intentions of parents are not as important as the wider context and that the adults attending a high school, do not enjoy the first amendment.
“While the plaintiffs may have never intended to report a humiliating or harassing message aimed at Parker Tirrell or other transsexual students, the symbols and posters they showed are fully capable of handing over such a message,” he writes. “And these wider messages are what the school authorities wisely understood and tried appropriately to prevent.”
School officials describe the receipt of strong emails from Foote, in which he called himself a “true leader” who was ready to take action and saw his publications on social media, urging others to attend the game. In the days leading to the game, another parent told school staff that she had heard others talk about showing the game, wearing dresses and Hakel Tirrell.
“This was organized and directed,” said Chief Marcy Kelly.
Brian Cullen, a lawyer in the school neighborhood, said on Monday that he was pleased with what he called a well -justified decision, which confirms that school districts could and should protect students from harassment from adults for school reasons. And he noted that the decision did not prevent the plaintiffs from expressing their views in other ways.
“It just prevents them from bringing their protest on the sidelines of a game that plays from children. This should not be a controversial restriction,” he said.
Del Calde, a lawyer’s lawyer, said he strongly disagreed with the decision.
“It was an adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys more protection from the first amendment from the classroom’s speech,” says Kolde, a senior lawyer at the Institute for Free Speech. “The employees of the Luka District Schools were obviously discriminating on the basis of a point of view because they perceived the XX wristbirds for a” trans-exclusive. “
Following the issuance of the decision, the plaintiffs submitted a notice stating that they did not intend to introduce more evidence before the judge made a final decision.
Meanwhile, Tirrell and another student athlete challenge the state law, which prohibits transgender athletes in grades 5 to 12 of teams that are aligned with their sexual identity, as well as the executive order of President Donald Trump on February 5, “to keep men from the women’s sport.” A federal judge ruled in his case that they could do sports during the ongoing case, which seeks to overturn the law.