Bishop Brady’s girls’ varsity soccer team forfeited its game against Kearsarge Regional High School because it did not have enough players available to field a team.

“It is unfortunate that the program was not able to play last Friday in what would have been the second to last home game on the schedule,” said Taylor Lipinski, Kearsarge’s athletic director. “We will continue to work to create as many opportunities for our student-athletes as possible.”

Bishop Brady was unable to field players for “multiple reasons” according to David Thibault, the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Manchester. 

“We aim to participate with the best of sportsmanship and fairness based on our faith as Catholic Christians. Any student who discerns to opt out of playing for their own reasons are supported and never penalized,” Thibault wrote in a statement.

The game was supposed to take place last Friday night in North Sutton. Bishop Brady notified Kearsarge that they would not attend the game the day before.

Parents at other school districts have expressed concerns over player safety because Kearsarge’s goalkeeper is a transgender student-athlete. In addition, parents elsewhere had expressed concerns over safety off the field because the parent of that Kearsarge player was recently convicted of child sexual abuse image charges and had been in attendance for some of Kearsarge’s games.

“Every person is made in God’s image with a body and soul, male and female. Therefore, every person’s dignity, and every student athlete’s dignity, must be upheld,” wrote Thibault. “This includes student-athletes from every school, public, private, or Catholic.”

The school did not forfeit this game in protest, Thibeault clarified.

“The team has a short roster and between injuries and a few who opted not to play, there were eight remaining girls available to play the game. Therefore, by default, the school forfeited the game as it could not field a full team roster,” wrote David Thibault said in a statement on Tuesday.

Similarly, some varsity players from Hillsboro-Deering did not attend their soccer game against Kearsarge three weeks ago, but the game was played with some junior varsity players.

Last month in Bow, two parents were issued no-trespass orders for wearing pink armbands emblazoned with “XX,” a reference to the sex chromosomes associated with biological females while attending a girls’ soccer game against Plymouth High School, who has a transgender athlete on the team.

Now, they are suing the school district and claiming that their First Amendment rights were violated.

Gov. Sununu said parents have a right to demonstrate.

“First Amendment rights are very clear,” Sununu said last week. “People have the  right to say certain things and protest.”

Currently, transgender athletes are allowed to play in New Hampshire high school  sports while two transgender athletes, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, and their families are suing their respective school districts and the New Hampshire commissioner of education, Frank Edelblut, to challenge a law that barred students assigned male at birth from playing on girls’ school sports teams in grades five through 12.

In Kearsarge’s case, the player appealed to the Kearsarge school board after the law took effect and was granted permission to play for her school despite the law. This is the first time this season that a girls’ soccer team forfeited a game against Kearsarge.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect new comments David Thibault, the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Manchester.