Female cross country athletes at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, Calif., made an impassioned appeal to the school board Thursday amid an ongoing controversy over transgender athletes on the team.
Kylie Morrow, a 16-year-old high school student, cited a recent lawsuit in which her teammates claim their “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts were likened to swastikas by school officials.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs allege that a transgender player who did not consistently participate in practices and did not meet the varsity's key eligibility requirements was placed on the varsity team, and one of the female students took the spot. He claims he wore the shirt after being chased.
School officials in the athletic department then claimed they created a “hostile” environment and compared these shirts to wearing a swastika in front of Jewish students and forcing students to take their shirts off. He is said to have forced her to hide her identity.
Morrow spoke Thursday before the Riverside Unified School District board of directors, slamming school officials and the idea that transgender athletes should be allowed to participate in girls' sports.
“I'm constantly affected by the actions that took place this season. I'm all around the women, and my entire team, and I don't think the entire LGBTQ community has been shoved down our throats. Because of this, they felt largely silenced from speaking out about it,” Morrow said.
“We live in a society where it's almost impossible to speak out about this issue without facing repercussions.”
Morrow said he even consulted the school's athletic director about the situation himself. She continued to passionately defend her teammates who filed suit while comparing the message to a swastika.
“I feel like my school and district are choosing to support one person instead of the entire team,” Morrow said. “It's not okay to see an athletic director turn around and tell his teammates that a shirt that says 'Save Women's Sports' is like a swastika. These girls feel silenced, they feel silenced, they feel silenced, And when they finally did something to speak out against it, they were totally stabbed in the back.”
Morrow concluded her testimony by stating how “dangerous” she felt the entire situation was, as a female athlete forced to share a locker room with a biological male.
“It's not good to have to be in a certain position, to have to see men in panties and have to see that around you, I don't think that's a safe environment for a 16-year-old girl. do not have” ,” Morrow said. “When I walk into the locker room and I see a man in there, I don't feel safe there, and I don't think I can go to a safe restroom when there are men in there. I'm fine. No, I’m a 16-year-old girl!”
The two girls who filed the lawsuit, known as Caitlin and Taylor, previously told Fox News Digital how difficult the situation was.
“My first reaction was I was really surprised, because I was like, 'Why is this happening to me?'” Taylor said. “There's a transgender student on the team. 'I studied hard and went to every practice, and this student has only been to a few practices,' so why am I being kicked out?” .
They didn't expect the shock of comparing their shirts to swastikas.
“It was definitely difficult to hear because we're not trying to express hate in any way,” Caitlin said. “We're just wearing shirts that express what we believe in to raise awareness of the situation.”
Martin Luther King High School is just one of many California public education institutions currently embroiled in controversy over trans athletes on women's sports teams.
Stoneridge Christian High School's girls volleyball team was scheduled to play against San Francisco Waldorf in the Northern California Division 6 Tournament, but last week it was suspended in a last-minute announcement because of the presence of a transgender player on the team. Deprived.
According to ABC 7, a transgender volleyball player was booed and harassed at a game between Notre Dame-Belmont and Half Moon Bay High School on Oct. 12 in Belmont, California. Half Moon Bay had registered the transgender athlete.
Steve Sell, the athletic director at Aragon High School in San Mateo, Calif., intervened in response to complaints of booing and harassment. According to ABC 7, Sell, as co-chair of the Peninsula Athletic League's athletic directors, informed Notre Dame that there could be consequences.
Meanwhile, at the college level, San Jose State University's volleyball team has been at the center of a national media firestorm over the presence of a transgender player on the team and his teammates being embroiled in multiple lawsuits over the issue. are.
San Jose State girls' co-captain Brooke Slusser joins the lawsuit against the NCAA and her own lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference and her school, claiming she was deceived about teammate Blair Fleming's birth gender. woke up. man.
The two sides continue to play together this season amid the ongoing controversy, but seven games on the schedule have been forfeited. San Jose State is scheduled to compete in the Mountain West tournament, but a ruling by a Biden-appointed judge after an emergency hearing Thursday in Colorado could prevent it from doing so.
A Mountain West spokesperson said San Jose State could win the tournament, which begins Nov. 27 in Las Vegas, if its opponent withdraws. But Federal Judge Kato Cruz will rule on whether the plan stands. Teams and transgender athletes sometimes compete.
