Two female high jump athletes refused to stand on the podium alongside a transgender competitor at this weekend’s high school state championships in Oregon.
Reese Eckard from Sherwood High School and Alexa Anderson from Tigard High School have been widely praised on social media, with many calling them heroes, after they appeared to walk away from the medal ceremony in protest of the fifth-place athlete, who is reportedly transgender. Anderson finished third in the competition, while Eckard came in fourth. Video footage obtained by Fox News shows both athletes turning away from the audience instead of stepping onto the podium before an official escorted them away from the medal ceremony.
Setting an Example
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“Two female athletes in Oregon refused to stand on the podium because a boy was awarded a place. Girls have had enough,” conservative activist Riley Gaines wrote on X. “Girls have had enough.”
Anderson spoke to Fox News about her decision in an interview over the weekend.
“We didn’t refuse to stand on the podium out of hate,’ she said. ‘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.”
Oregon is among several states challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which warns of cutting off federal funding to states that do not comply.
According to a recent AP-NORC poll, around 70 percent of U.S. adults believe that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in girls’ or women’s sports at the high school, college, or professional levels. That opinion is held by nearly 90 percent of Republicans and about 50 percent of Democrats.
The athletic federation announced a policy change following Trump’s warning that California could lose federal funding unless it bans transgender female athletes from girls’ teams. However, the federation claimed that its decision was made prior to the federal threat.
Going Against Trump’s Orders
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The U.S. Department of Justice also announced it would launch an investigation into the athletic federation and the school district that oversees Hernandez’s high school to determine whether they violated federal laws prohibiting sex-based discrimination.
In California, state law allows transgender students to join sports teams that align with their gender identity, even if the teams are separated by sex.
While data on transgender athletes participating in female sports is limited, NCAA President Charlie Baker testified in December that fewer than 10 transgender athletes are currently competing out of the roughly 500,000 collegiate student-athletes nationwide.
Both the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have affirmed that gender exists on a spectrum rather than being strictly male or female—a stance that contradicts the position taken by the White House in its January 20 executive order aimed at “defending women from gender ideology.”
