By Cerise Fortress for Capital & Important
After months of being harassed and heckled by a bunch of adults, AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old transgender athlete, received first place in two occasions on the California Interscholastic Federation’s Monitor and Subject Championships on Saturday amidst cheers from mother and father, coaches and different rivals. Hours after President Donald Trump demanded, in a Might 27 put up on Fact Social, that she not be allowed to compete, the U.S. Division of Justice launched an investigation into California faculty directors, the CIF and the Jurupa Unified Faculty District, the place Hernandez is a scholar, for permitting transgender student-athletes to compete in women’ sports activities.
The California Interscholastic Federation successfully created a brand new class for Hernandez following Trump’s assertion. Beneath new guidelines for this yr’s observe and subject championships, the following “biological female student-athlete” that completed beneath Hernandez shared the place together with her. Two first place medals have been awarded for triple bounce, and three for top bounce, because the second place winners tied. Two second place medals have been awarded for lengthy bounce.
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“Students participate in the gender in which they identify. I don’t have anything else,” Rebecca Brutlag, director of media on the California Interscholastic Federation, stated in response to an inquiry as to how the group outlined a “biological female.”
“I may be competing with the girls, but I’m technically competing by myself,” Hernandez stated throughout an interview with Capital & Important as she ready for the meet. “Which is why I’m kind of like, ‘Well, just got to perform my best.’ As long as I’m happy with my results, that’s all I care about.”
After the championships, U.S. Assistant Legal professional Common Harmeet Ok. Dhillon despatched a letter to California public colleges and to commissioners of the California Interscholastic Federation stating that the coverage permitting college students to take part in athletic occasions based mostly on their gender identification violates federal regulation. Dillon warned districts they’d be open to authorized legal responsibility for permitting transgender college students to compete, and she or he demanded that college leaders certify compliance in writing by 5 p.m on June 9. President Trump additionally posted on Fact Social that he’ll impose “large-scale fines” on California for permitting Hernandez to compete.
The president’s put up about Hernandez was the loudest voice to affix a cacophony of native elected officers, conservative influencers and random adults who’ve made Hernandez the poster baby for an effort to ban transgender youngsters from taking part in sports activities and getting into sure bodily areas that match their gender identification. A number of of those that’ve weighed in have made the matter a central problem of platforms of their campaigns for public workplace. Sonja Shaw, the president of the Chino Valley Unified Faculty District’s Board of Schooling, states that transgender women “undermine fairness and safety” on the web site for her marketing campaign for superintendent of public instruction overseeing California’s public colleges.
Shaw doxxed Hernandez in February, posting her full identify, highschool and the truth that she is transgender on-line. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who’s operating for governor of California, has misgendered transgender college students repeatedly on social media. Bianco additionally co-hosted Shaw’s kickoff marketing campaign occasion in Riverside.
Anti-trans insurance policies have been adopted by nationwide and native organizations backing Republican candidates as a successful technique to push voters to the proper. Members of the Council for Nationwide Coverage (CNP), a secretive, well-funded group of highly effective conservatives, acquired a tutorial on tips on how to use public faculty boards and transphobia to drive voters to the polls in Republicans’ favor in 2022. The plan requires, amongst different issues, whipping up help at native faculty boards, which Shaw has spearheaded by way of introducing motions prohibiting transgender athletes from taking part in women’ sports activities which have been replicated at school districts throughout Southern California. One other step is creating “a visible wave of resistance through the campaign [and] social media.”
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That wave made a small displaying exterior of Veteran’s Memorial Stadium throughout each days of the 2025 California Interscholastic Federation’s Monitor and Subject Championships, held in Clovis. A bunch of 10 adults stood exterior of the meet carrying indicators and chanting into megaphones because the occasion received underway.
Beth Bourne, an worker of College of California, Davis, carried a foam board that displayed the identities of 10 transgender youth athletes whom she stated she recognized by wanting on the youngsters’s social media accounts. The morning of the occasion, Bourne posted a sequence of tweets in regards to the scholar athletes, together with AB Hernandez. “People feel like I’m stalking [the kids] because I look on the social media accounts for the trans-identified kids in our schools, and I talk to parents and I look at what’s on the teacher’s social media. I don’t know if it’s stalking or if it’s doing like…investigative journalistic work. I encourage everyone to do the same,” she stated.
Anti-trans protesters maintain indicators exterior of Veterans Memorial Stadium in Clovis.
A number of protesters made their approach into the stadium carrying shirts proclaiming “Protect Girls Sports” and “XX≠XY.” Through the first day of the meet, a airplane towing a banner emblazoned with “No Boys in Girls’ Sports!” circled overhead for hours. The meet was paused at one level throughout the finals when a number of adults started to heckle Hernandez as she was about to carry out her bounce. Sophia Lorey, who has organized previous protests in opposition to Hernandez at her observe meets, was escorted out of the stadium after she handed out flyers encouraging others to get entangled in her efforts. Lorey is the outreach director of the California Household Council, which has been labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Legislation Middle.
The technique of utilizing a “visible wave of resistance” to a transgender athlete didn’t seem to win over many supporters on the meet. On the sector, Hernandez’s rivals embraced her wholeheartedly. She spent the lengthy, sizzling weekend laughing and chatting with the opposite women, and exchanging direct messages on social media after the occasions wrapped for the day. When the time got here to current medals on the rostrum, Hernandez stood smiling with the women she shared the award with.
“Sharing the podium was nothing but an honor,” Brooke White, who was awarded the second-place podium for the lengthy bounce alongside Hernandez, informed the San Francisco Chronicle. “Although the publicity she’s been receiving has been pretty negative, I believe she deserves publicity because she’s a superstar, she’s a rock star, she’s representing who she is.”
AB Hernandez smiles for the digital camera between triple bounce makes an attempt.
Hernandez’s mom, Nereyda, was approached by dozens of people that supplied their help. Some had pushed for hours to attend the meet in help of AB.
“They are distracting all of the athletes they supposedly came to protect,” one coach from a San Diego workforce stated. “I’ve been a coach for over 20 years. The kids don’t care.”
Hernandez stated the entire help was heartfelt, and made her expertise significantly better. “It just really overtakes the hate, and it just means so much. And it makes me want to keep pushing and just keep fighting for me to continue this and leave a legacy behind.”
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