High school girls speak out as transgender track competitors take state honors

The days of female competitors keeping quiet as biological males beat them at their own game are apparently over.

Transgender track stars won numerous awards at high school championships in California, Maine, Oregon and Washington over the weekend, but they also faced pushback from fans and some girls in the contests.

Among those speaking out was Lauren Matthew, a junior at West Valley High School in Washington, who lost to the same transgender runner for the second year in the girls’ 400-meter dash at the state’s Interscholastic Athletic Association Class 2A finals.

“I shouldn’t have to push myself to the point of where I’m about to, like, die in order to win,” Matthew told the [Spokane] Spokesman-Review after the preliminary heat. “I know I’m gonna push myself to keep going, but I don’t want a man pushing me.”

Fans at the event booed as transgender runner Veronica Garcia, a senior at East Valley High School in Spokane, crossed the finish line in first place. There were more boos as Garcia accepted the gold medal at the awards ceremony.

Missing from the podium were Matthew and teammate Quincy Andrews, the fifth-place finisher. Matthew later posed for a photo with a sign that described her as the “Real Girls 2A 400m Champion.”

Update from Lauren Matthew, the real state champ!

XX≠XY https://t.co/XvC9iVbu4S pic.twitter.com/RHoh44uJYO

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) May 31, 2025

Garcia, a senior, said afterward that the boos served as motivation for Saturday’s championship contest.

“Maybe it didn’t have their intended effect, considering it made me angry,” Garcia said. “But not angry as in, I wanted to give up, but angry as in, I’m gonna push.”

Garcia’s victory also drew a protest from athletes at Tumwater High School, who posed for a photo atop the podium wearing T-shirts that said, “Keep Women’s Sports Female.”

Protesters gathered outside the California Interscholastic Federation’s track-and-field championships in Clovis as A.B. Hernandez, a transgender long- and high-jump competitor, won two gold medals and a silver in the girls’ field.

Organizers briefly halted the competition at Buchanan High School after some spectators began chanting “save girls’ sports” and other slogans. A plane flew over the stadium Friday with a banner that said: “No Boys in Girls’ Sports.”

Hernandez drew national attention after President Trump referenced the Jurupa Valley High School junior in a Truth Social post last week, warning that he would pull federal funding from California unless the state complied with his executive order banning biological males from female scholastic sports.

Instead, the federation revised its rules to allow girls displaced from competitions or the awards podium by Hernandez to receive compensatory awards and qualifying spots.

This week has been a dream for the women-hating Democrats.

Boys stole girls’ state titles, podium spots, or qualifying spots in California, Maine, Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota.

They swear this isn’t actually happening. pic.twitter.com/0hU0EVlu4H

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) June 1, 2025

In Oregon, Ida B. Wells High School senior Liaa Rose took fifth place in the girls’ high jump, but two of the top finishers — Tigard High School’s Alexa Anderson and Sherwood High School’s Reese Eckard — refused to share the podium with the transgender high jumper.

They stepped down from the podium during the awards ceremony in protest of Rose’s participation. An official ushered them away from the area shortly afterward, as shown in a video posted online.

“We didn’t refuse to stand on the podium out of hate,” Anderson, who placed third, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We did it because someone has to say this isn’t right. In order to protect the integrity and fairness of girls’ sports we must stand up for what is right.”

Riley Gaines, a prominent women’s sports advocate, reposted the video on X and said: “Two female athletes in Oregon refused to stand on the podium because a boy was awarded a place. Girls have had enough.”