Instead of simply following President Trump’s executive order that bans biological men from participating in women’s sports, California came up with a more reductive policy.
They said girls could share the podium with trans athlete AB Hernandez who, by the way, had a pretty successful Saturday at the state championships. Because Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School, is a dude competing against chicks.
As controversy swirled around Hernandez’s dominant performance in high school track and field and Trump’s threats to withhold federal funding, the California Interscholastic Federation tweaked its rules on Tuesday to mandate that any biological females who lost to a trans-athlete would not lose their place.
Hernandez took first in two events and second in another. For the high jump, Hernandez cleared 5 feet 7 inches with no failed attempts while his two, I guess we can call them “co-winners,” Jillene Wetteland and Lelani Laruelle cleared the same threshold with a fail each. The three shared the first-place podium.
In the triple jump, the trans athlete won while Kira Gant Hatcher, who trailed by over a half-meter, stood atop the first-place platform, again alongside Hernandez.
And yet the fact that they had to change the rules of a simple straight forward competition —whoever jumps the highest or the longest wins — to accommodate Hernandez was an admission from officials that this all was inherently ridiculous.
And yes, utterly confusing. Hey, you technically lost to a biological male but here’s your first-place trophy anyways because we feel bad that we are letting this dude in.
Girls, like their male counterparts, are cutthroat and competitive. They want and deserve a level playing field and the chance to win fair-and-square. They shouldn’t have to be told to be a good girl and make room for the person who everyone has agreed — by making the rule change — does not belong there.
Why not simply comply with the ban? Instead, the governing body is twisting itself into a pretzel to accommodate trans athletes.
It’s 2025. After years of being told that we had to remake our society and erase the female side of the gender binary in sports, jails and yes, locker rooms, or be called a transphobe, we have returned to consensus of sanity. Or at least people are finally unafraid of being canceled to simply state the obvious: biological men have a physical advantage over them.
This is such a settled issue that the most recent polling shows close to 80 percent of Americans believe men do not belong in women’s sports.
There’s also been another change.
After what I can only call a chilling absence of male voices from the sports world, we’re starting to see more high-profile athletes finally speak out. Maybe because it’s no longer verboten. But better late than never.
Last month Aaron Rodgers told Joe Rogan that, “the trans-woman movement is actually anti-woman…when it comes to sports.
“You’re not seeing trans men dominating anything. It’s because there’s a biological difference.”
Meanwhile, Sir Charles Barkley told Outkick’s Dan Dakitch that he was “gonna make this very simple for you, Dan. Men should not play sports against women.
“I don’t even think that’s controversial… I don’t wanna hear you try to explain it to me. No, no, no, I don’t wanna hear it. I’m not gonna argue with you. Men shouldn’t play sports against women. I’m done,” he said.
Even cuckoo progressive California Gov. Gavin Newsom — who is trying to rebrand himself as a common sense Dem — admitted it was “deeply unfair.”
Then he backed this sudden rule change.
And yet, there are many pockets of the media who are still choosing their twisted version of compassion for boys over reality. During a Friday interview with Julie Hamill, President of the California Justice Center, CNN host Brianna Keilar repeatedly called Hernandez “her” and used the cockamamie phase, “assigned female at birth.”
A visibly annoyed Hamill corrected Keilar, noting that Hernandez is a he. Because when you strip all the pronoun charades and the fluffy terms of “gender affirming care” we can see clearly what this issue is about: biological truth and fairness.