High school girls refuse to share podium with male

Two high school girls who competed at the Oregon track and field state championships refused to stand on the winners’ podium with a trans-identifying athlete in protest of a male competing in the girls’ high jump event. 

Footage of the Saturday event shared by Fox News shows Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School and Reese Eckard of Sherwood High School, both seniors, hop off the podium instead of standing next to Lia Rose (originally Zachary Rose) of Ida B. Wells High School. 

“We didn’t refuse to stand on the podium out of hate. 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,” Anderson said in a statement to Fox News. 

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The male athlete tied for fifth place in the 6A high school girls’ high jump state championship, while Eckard placed fourth and Anderson placed third. Before he started identifying as a girl named Lia, the athlete largely competed in junior varsity boys’ competitions in 2023 and 2024, as Fox News previously reported. 

In the video of the medal ceremony, Anderson and Eckard are seen standing off the podium with their backs facing the other athletes before an official gestured for them to move away. The two female athletes then walked away from the podium and stood off to the side.

The girls’ actions garnered praise from women’s sports advocate and All-American swimmer Riley Gaines, who shared a clip on her social media of the high school girls refusing to stand on the podium with Rose. 

“Two female athletes in Oregon refused to stand on the podium because a boy was awarded a place,” Gaines wrote in a Saturday X post. “Girls have had enough.”

The Oregon School Activities Association did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment about what it thought about the girls’ actions. 

The topic of male trans-identified individuals competing in women’s sports continues to receive attention from advocates and the media, especially as President Donald Trump’s administration has made the issue one of its priorities.

In February, Trump signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, with dozens of female athletes and their coaches attending the signing ceremony. 

Last Tuesday, Trump suggested that California could face federal funding pauses if the state does not comply with his executive order banning male athletes from women’s sports. 

“As a Male, he was a less than average competitor. As a Female, this transitioned person is practically unbeatable,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social page. “THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS. Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.”

It is possible that Trump was referring to AB Hernandez, a trans-identified junior at Jurupa Valley High School, who won the girls’ long jump and triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Masters Meet and qualified for the state finals.

In response to Trump’s post, the CIF announced it would extend access for “biological female” athletes to participate in the championship meet.

Advocates for women’s sports called on influential brands to speak out on the issue. 

Last month, XX-XY Athletics, a clothing brand raising awareness about fairness in women’s sports, released an advertisement that featured various female athletes and former athletes. The women called on Nike to stand up for women’s sports following a report that the brand funded a study involving trans-identifying athletes. 

One of the girls featured in XX-XY Athletics’ video, former North Carolina high school volleyball player Payton McNabb, told Nike that she had “dreams of playing” the sport in college. 

“But those were all taken away from me by a man,” McNabb says in the video.

During a volleyball game against a rival high school in 2022, McNabb was violently struck in the head by a ball slammed over the net by a male trans-identifying athlete on the opposing team. A medical evaluation later revealed that the injury had resulted in neurological impairments, including partial paralysis. 

XX-XY Athletics released the video following an article in The New York Times about San Jose State University volleyball player Blaire Fleming, a male who identifies as a woman. Women’s volleyball teams at multiple schools, including the University of Wyoming, opted to forfeit their games against SJSU instead of facing a team that had a male athlete.

The Times article referenced a study that assesses the fitness results of trans-identifying youth before they start taking opposite-sex hormones. 

The study, which Nike funded, aimed to analyze trans-identifying youth every six months for five years, including after youth have undergone body mutilating surgeries in an attempt to look more like the opposite sex.

An executive for Nike, however, claimed the study “was never initialized” and “is not moving forward.” Regarding whether the brand had funded it, the executive said that “no one was wrong,” but there might have been some “gaps in the information chain.”