The 2024-25 school year in the U.S. was beset by a series of controversies involving trans athletes playing for girls’ sports teams.
Many of these incidents have garnered national attention and ignited heated debates.
President Donald Trump took aim at this issue on Feb. 5 when he signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, but multiple Democrat-controlled states defied it.
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As the school year and spring sports season come to a close, here is a breakdown of all the incidents that shook the nation over the last year.
California was the nation’s biggest hotbed of incidents involving trans athletes in girls’ sports.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School won the girls’ triple jump and high jump state championships this past weekend against the backdrop of local protests and national attention after Trump called out the situation earlier last week. California’s high school sports league responded by amending its rules to accommodate female athletes who finished behind a trans athlete in the three events Hernandez competed in, granting them qualification and podium finishes they would have earned had a biologically male athlete not competed in those events.
This resulted in Hernandez having to share podium spots with the female athletes who finished one spot behind Hernandez after the finals on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the protests at the meet escalated into a violent crime scene after a pro-LGBTQ protester was arrested for allegedly assaulting a conservative with a transgender pride flag, women’s rights activist Sophia Lorey was police escorted out of the venue for handing out “Save Girls Sports” wristbands, and a plane flew over head with a banner that read “No Boys in Girls’ Sports!”
However, months before Hernandez took the titles at the chaotic track meet, a girls’ cross-country controversy at Martin Luther King High School resulted in a lawsuit and student uprising.
Students Kaitlyn Slavin and Taylor Starling filed the lawsuit against the Riverside Unified School District after a trans athlete took Starling’s varsity spot on the girls’ cross-country team, and alleged the school administrators compared “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts the girls wore in protest to swastikas.
Then hundreds of students at the school began to wear the shirts every Wednesday despite the school putting a dress code in place to forbid it. The school began putting the students wearing them in detention, but that did not stop the teens from wearing them. Eventually, the school stopped punishing students for wearing the shirts, and they continued to wear them every week.
In the fall and winter sports seasons, a transgender athlete for San Francisco Waldorf ignited national controversy for the school’s girls’ volleyball and basketball teams.
During the girls’ volleyball season, Stone Ridge Christian’s team forfeited a playoff game to Waldorf. The Stone Ridge Christian girls sacrificed their season to take a public stand by refusing to face the trans athlete and were later honored by activist Riley Gaines.
Then in February, the trans athlete was set to face Cornerstone Christian in a girls’ basketball playoff game, just weeks after Trump signed his executive order. That time, it was San Francisco Waldorf’s player who refused to play, skipping the game amid warnings by the U.S. Department of Education, which Fox News Digital first reported. With the trans athlete out of the lineup, San Francisco Waldorf lost the playoff game by 26 points.
Another California transgender high school volleyball player was booed and harassed at an Oct. 12 match between Notre Dame Belmont and Half Moon Bay High School, according to ABC 7. Half Moon Bay rostered the transgender athlete.
During the Lucia Mar Unified School District board meeting in April, a high-school junior girls’ track athlete at Arroyo Grande High School named Celeste Diest took the lectern to recount her experience of having to change in front of a biologically male trans athlete before practice, while that athlete allegedly watched her undress. The school board president told Diest to “wrap it up” while the teen cried.
Then, at the following meeting, a girl named Audrey Vanherweg said she had to change in her car to avoid changing with the trans athlete. At the very same meeting, a trans athlete at the school also spoke.
“When I joined track last year, I was terrified,” the athlete said. “I was alone, and I feared for my life. When I started going to track practice, I was too afraid to make friends. I thought they would reject and mock me for being transgender. At my first meet, I sat alone, on the wet, muddy ground.
“I fear that somebody would accuse me of a heinous crime, so I walked on razor-thin ice. I never spent longer than three minutes in the locker room. I never made eye contact with people,” the athlete said. “And yet, people still accuse me, someone who deals with sexual harassment on a daily basis, of being a predator. So, I’m here to say that I am not the villain, I am the victim.”
Maine became ground zero for Trump’s campaign to force Democrat leaders to comply with his executive order in February after a spat between him and Gov. Janet Mills during a bi-partisan meeting of governors at the White House.
The spat occurred days after a transgender athlete for Greely High School won a girls’ pole vault state title. Greely’s athlete had previously competed in boys’ track and field two years earlier.
“I watched this male pole vaulter stand on the podium, and we were all just like looking we were like ‘We’re pretty sure that’s not a girl. There’s no way that’s a girl,'” Presque Isle student Hailey Himes previously told Fox News Digital. “It was really discouraging, especially for the girls on the podium not in first place. So that motivated me to fight for them.”
Meanwhile, another trans athlete in the state for North Yarmouth Academy has beaten multiple girls’ athletes in cross-country, track and field and Nordic Skiing.
Maine girls’ athlete Cassidy Carlisle of Presque Isle High School lost big competitions to North Yarmouth’s trans athlete in both cross-country and Nordic skiing.
“The defeat that comes with that in that moment is heartbreaking,” Carlisle said. “I’m just in shock in a way. I didn’t believe it. … I didn’t think it was happening to me.”
Now, both Greely’s and North Yarmouth’s trans athletes are set to compete in the upcoming girls’ track and field state finals this weekend.
Minnesota’s girls’ softball season is currently at the center of national attention as a transgender pitcher is leading Champlin Park High School on a dominant postseason run.
The pitcher led Champlin Park to the state tournament with a dominant shutout victory in the sectional final on Thursday, and now the school will compete in the state tournament for the first time in program history on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit by three anonymous female players has been filed against the state for allowing the player to compete.
The law firm representing the plaintiffs, Alliance Defending Freedom, provided statements from one of the female players about her experience facing the trans athlete.
“Hitting against him is not only a physical challenge but a mental, too. It’s a mental battle knowing that he has an advantage in the sport that I grew up playing, making it hard to even want to hit against him. His ability to get outs and spin the ball is a strong advantage, but like I said it’s also incredibly mentally challenging knowing that you’re competing against someone who has unfair advantages leaving you with little to no confidence,” the player said.
“This issue has affected me in ways that I never imagined. It’s simply unfair, and I hate that nothing is happening to change that. Boys should not be able to take girls’ spots on teams just because they are capable of doing so. I hope that more girls affected by this issue will stand up against this.”
Oregon was thrust into the national spotlight over the issue this past weekend at the state track and field championships when two female athletes went viral for refusing to take the podium next to a trans athlete after medaling in the girls’ high jump.
The two high school seniors, Reese Eckard of Sherwood High School and Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School, stepped down from their respective spots on the podium next to a trans athlete who represented Ida B. Wells High School.
Eckard, in fourth place, and Anderson, in third, each finished ahead of the trans athlete, who tied for fifth place. However, the two females faced the opposite direction as the other competitors received their medals from officials.
Anderson alleges the official ordered her and Eckard to get out of the shot of photos if they were not going to stand on the podium.
“We stepped off the podium in protest and, as you can see, the official kind of told us ‘hey, go over there, if you’re not going to participate, get out of the photos,'” Anderson alleged during an interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle” Monday night.
“They asked us to move away from the medal stand, so when they took the photos, we weren’t even in it at all.”
In early April, the Ida B. Wells trans athlete finished first place in a varsity high jump competition roughly two years after finishing last while competing against junior varsity boys.
Back in March, a trans athlete for McDaniel High School finished in first place in the 200M and 400M races during the 6A-1 Portland Interscholastic League Championship in 2024, breaking season records.
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Despite having a law in place to restrict biological males in girls’ sports, three trans athletes found their way onto girls’ sports teams in New Hampshire over the last year.
Plymouth Regional High School’s Parker Tirrell competed on the girls’ tennis team, Pembroke Academy’s Iris Turmelle competed on that school’s girls’ soccer team, as their families have filed a lawsuit to enable the trans athletes’ respective inclusion on each team. After Trump’s executive order, they expanded the lawsuit to include his administration as well.
In September, parents wore pink “XX” wristbands during a high school soccer game that Tirrell played in to show support to the female athletes involved. The protest led to Bow and Dunbarton School Districts Superintendent Marcy Kelley issuing a notice of trespass against parents Anthony and Nicole Foote, along with Kyle Fellers and Eldon Rash, according to the New Hampshire Journal.
The parents then sued the school district, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated. However, in mid-April, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe ruled that the district acted reasonably in its decision to prevent parents from wearing the wristbands.
Meanwhile, Bishop Brady High School saw its girls’ soccer team boycott a game against Kearsage Regional High School over a trans athlete on that team in October.
The judge who made the ruling to overrule the state’s laws preventing trans inclusion in girls’ sports was Landya McCafferty, who is a liberal appointed to her seat by former President Barack Obama in 2013.
In February, a civil rights complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on behalf of a teenage girl in Washington state who was allegedly punished for refusing to play a basketball game against a trans athlete.
The complaint alleged that the Tumwater School District in Washington investigated 15-year-old Frances Staudt for “misgendering” the opponent and violating the district’s policies against bullying and harassment on Feb. 7.
Staudt appeared on the YouTube series “[un]Divided with Brandie Kruse” with her mother to discuss the situation later that month.
“I’ve had threats at me. I’ve had people telling me I’m going to hell. I’ve had people saying, ‘Good luck having any future after this’ and saying, ‘I know all the people who are reporting your account are happy to see your downfall, and know that it’s going to be a real rough time for you in your future because of your decision to post this,'” Staudt said
Just days later, the trans athlete involved in the incident, identified as Andi Rooks, appeared on the same show alongside the athlete’s father.
“I’ve never had an issue until this game, and my goal was never to make anybody uncomfortable in any way, and I didn’t even realize Frances had an issue until I got yelled at at the game,” Rooks said. “If she had had a conversation with me before the game, I would have sat out. My last thing I want to do is make anybody uncomfortable.”
Rooks added that the athlete will sit out any future games if opponents are uncomfortable facing a trans athlete.
“If any other person or player I’m playing against is like, ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this,’ I don’t mind sitting out,” Rooks said.
The Tumwater School District went on to pass its own rule to ban trans athletes from girls’ sports, before a Department of Education investigation was launched against the district for the incident.
Then this past weekend, Verónica Garcia, a transgender competitor, has been on top of the competition in the girls’ 400-meter races during the Washington state outdoor season in 2025 and finished in first place during the state championships on Saturday.
Garcia, who competes for East Valley High School in Spokane, took home the title in the 2A race for the second straight year. Garcia finished first in the 2A Greater Spokane League District Championship on May 23 and won several other regular-season races over the course of the year.
Garcia told The Seattle Times there were boos from the crowd that did not agree that biological males should compete against girls in sports. However, Garcia fired back with a defiant message after the race was over.
“I’ll be honest, I kind of expect it,” Garcia told the outlet. “But it maybe didn’t have their intended effect. It made me angry, but not angry as in, I wanted to give up, but angry as in, I’m going to push.
“I’m going to put this in the most PG-13 way. I’m just going to say it’s a damn shame they don’t have anything else better to do. I hope they get a life. But oh well. It just shows who they are as people.”
In May, Plymouth Whitemarsh High School trans athlete Luce Allen took first place in the Liberty Girls’ 200-meter race at the SOL American Conference Championships. Allen barely defeated the second-place runner by fewer than two-hundredths of a second.
Allen’s parents had previously said that it would be “cruel” to “force” the male athlete to compete against boys and that Allen should be allowed to race against girls because that is how the athlete “identifies.”
“My child is a female in her heart and soul, and according to her medical labs. Having her play sports with males would be cruel,” Allen’s mother, Sarah Hansen said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Through an attorney, Allen released a statement that said, in part, “If you remove the ability of trans people to compete with a team that corresponds with their gender, then you’ll strip them of their opportunity to develop as people.”
In April, a trans athlete joined the girls’ varsity track team William Floyd High School despite not being on hormone replacement treatment, according to The New York Post.
A group of female student athletes told the South Shore Press they would feel uncomfortable if they had to share a locker room with a biologically male competitor.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 13-year-old freshman at Bridgeport Senior High School who has been the subject of a Supreme Court case about their participation in girls’ sports, finished in third place in the discus event and eighth in the shot put competition at the West Virginia state championship in late May.
A federal appeals court blocked a West Virginia law that would have kept biological males from competing against girls and women in sports last year. The court said the law cannot lawfully be applied to a middle school-aged trans girl who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since the third grade.
West Virginia has since made an appeal to the Supreme Court regarding the appeals court’s ruling.
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