A transgender athlete from Jurupa Valley High School ignited protests for the second consecutive year Saturday by competing against biological girls in a state track-and-field tournament in Yorba Linda.
Senior AB Hernandez won the girls long jump Saturday morning at the CIF Southern Section Division 3 Preliminaries at Yorba Linda High School, the first of three events Hernandez entered.
Hernandez’s winning mark was 20-feet, 4-and-a-half inches, well ahead of the second-place finisher, Gianna Gonzalez of Moorpark High School, whose mark was 19-feet, 1-and-a-half inches.
Hernandez also finished in a five-way tie for first in the high jump, with a mark of 5-feet-2 inches, and was set to compete in the triple jump later Saturday.
Prior to the start of Saturday’s competition, a “Save Girls’ Sports” rally was organized outside the event by Sophia Lorey, a former NCAA women’s soccer player who says allowing biological boys to compete against biological girls is inherently unfair. Both of California’s GOP gubernatorial candidates, Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, were originally scheduled to attend the protest, but neither was able to make it, according to Lorey.
“Once again we’re here to say this will never be the new normal,” Lorey said at the rally.
Hernandez’s participation in a CIF meet last year drew the ire of President Donald Trump, and the U.S. Justice Department later sued California for allegedly violating Title IX, warning that allowing transgender athletes to compete against biological females in high-school sports was putting billions of dollars in federal education funding at risk.
“They swear I’m like this crazy danger to society. I’m just a normal kid going to school, playing sports,” Hernandez told CBS News in an interview last year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has come under attack from the Trump administration for California’s policy permitting trans athletes to compete in girls sports, but a spokesperson for the governor’s office characterized those attacks as politically motivated.
“The governor has said discussions on this issue should be guided by fairness, dignity, and respect. He rejects the right wing’s cynical attempt to weaponize this debate as an excuse to vilify individual kids,” Newsom’s office said in a statement provided to Fox News. “The governor’s position is simple: stand with all kids and stand up to bullies.”
According to the DOJ complaint, filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California’s policies and practices “ignore undeniable biological differences between boys and girls, in favor of an amorphous `gender identity.’ The results of these illegal policies are stark: girls are displaced from podiums, denied awards, and miss out on critical visibility for college scholarships and recognition.”
The suit accuses the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation of engaging in illegal sex discrimination against female student athletes by allowing males to compete against them. The DOJ alleges the state’s policies deprive girls of the equal education and athletic opportunities afforded to them by federal law’s Title IX prohibition against sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.
“California is on the wrong side of the law and the wrong side of history,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California said in a statement last year. “Women deserve dignity, respect, and an equal opportunity to compete on their own sports teams. The time for talk is over. California must comply with Title IX and end its civil rights violations against women. No person, no state, is above the law.”
California officials denied the state’s policy is breaking the law. The Attorney General’s Office issued a statement saying: “Our office remains committed to defending and upholding California laws and the rights of all students, including transgender students, to be free from discrimination and harassment.”
Also last year, three female high school students who oppose the Jurupa Unified School District’s policy of permitting biological boys identifying as transgender to participate in girls’ sports filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking an end to the policy at the local and state levels.
The plaintiffs, Hadeel Hazameh, Alyssa McPherson and her sibling Madison McPherson, initiated their civil action based on experiences at Jurupa Valley High School.