California’s high school track and field state championship drew national attention over the weekend after a transgender athlete won two events.
Jurupa Valley High School junior AB Hernandez won the girls high jump and triple jump and placed second in the long jump.
Hernandez’s wins came less than a week after President Donald Trump called for the athlete to be prohibited from competing in the state championship, The Associated Press reported.
In response to Hernandez’s success throughout the track and field season, the California Interscholastic Federation passed a new policy last week that enabled an extra girl to compete and medal in Hernandez’s events, according to the AP.
California’s new transgender athlete policy change
On May 27, the federation, which is the state’s governing body over high school sports, announced a “pilot entry process” for the state championships. The new policy allowed an additional girl to compete in Hernandez’s three events.
“The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law and Education Code,” the federation said in the statement announcing the new policy.
Earlier that day, Trump criticized the state of California and Gov. Gavin Newsom in a Truth Social post, saying the state “continues to ILLEGALLY allow ‘MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS,’” as the Deseret News previously reported.
In the post, Trump warned “that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.”
Under California’s new policy, if a transgender athlete medaled in an event, like Hernandez did, “their ranking would not displace a ‘biological female’ student from medaling,” according to an earlier AP story.
That means it’s now possible for a “biological female” competitor to share a place with a transgender female competitor, even if the transgender female wins. That happened in California over the weekend.
In the triple jump, Hernandez shared first place with Kira Gant Hatcher, whose jump trailed Hernandez’s by over half a meter.
In the high jump, Hernandez shared the first-place podium with Jillene Wetteland and Lelani Laruelle.
All three cleared a height of 5 feet, 7 inches. Wetteland and Laruelle cleared it after each recorded a failed attempt, while Hernandez had no failed attempts, according to ESPN.
AP described the atmosphere of the championship as “relatively quiet,” though some individuals wore pink bracelets and T-shirts with the phrase “Save Girls’ Sports” written on them.
On Friday, a plane carried a banner displaying the phrase, “No Boys in Girls’ Sports!” for over an hour above the stadium during preliminaries. The Independent Council on Women’s Sports and Women Are Real were responsible for the banner, per AP.
2 student athletes protest in Oregon
The California event wasn’t the only state track and field championship to make headlines over the weekend.
Oregon’s also sparked controversy when, after a transgender athlete finished fifth in the high jump, two girls protested sharing the podium with the athlete, according to Fox News.
Alexa Anderson and Reese Eckard finished in third and fourth, respectively.
In a video circulating on social media, Anderson and Eckard are shown stepping down from the podium and giving their backs to the podium as the names of the top eight finishers are read.
Near the end of a separate video, an official appears to wave Anderson and Eckard away from the podium.
The weekend’s events are the latest in a series of events that have put tension around transgender athletes’ participation in girls and women’s sports into national headlines.