A high school girls volleyball team in California chose to forfeit a game against a male competitor last Friday, Fox News reports.
The girls’ bold sacrifice, and the support of their parents and educators, reflect Californians’ growing intolerance for boys playing girls sports.
Riverside Poly High School recorded a loss Friday after refusing to play against Jurupa Valley High School. Though the school did not provide a reason for the forfeit, parents and a Riverside Unified School District board member told Fox the team did not want to play Jurupa Valley’s AB Hernandez – a boy.
Hernandez is no stranger to winning girls events; he took first in the triple and high jumps at the California girls high school track and field championship in May.
His participation in girls’ volleyball isn’t just profoundly unfair — it’s dangerous.
Riverside Unified School District board member Amanda Vickers told Fox on Friday:
This is about [the] difference between biological girls and biological boys. And, tonight, the girls of Riverside Poly High School, they’re not going to end up like Payton McNabb.
McNabb suffered serious head trauma in 2022 after a male opponent spiked a ball into her face. The blow left the then-17-year-old with a severe concussion. She still struggles with partial paralysis and vision problems.
“I applaud these girls!” McNabb told Fox Digital in a statement of support for Riverside Poly. “They were put in a situation no young athlete should ever face — choosing between their safety and their sport.”
She continued:
What these girls did took real courage, and it’s devastating that they’re the ones paying the price for a decision made by adults.
California Family Council Outreach Director Sophia Lorey, who was escorted out of the state track and field championship for distributing “Save Girls Sports” bracelets, echoes McNabb.
“For high school girls to boldly say, ‘I will not put my safety at risk and aid in the erasure of girls sports’ is an incredibly difficult stand to take,” she told the Daily Citizen.
“I am both proud of and inspired by [these girls’] courage.”
The Riverside Poly girls volleyball team is just one group of many young California women standing up against boys in girls’ sports and private spaces. Their efforts have helped sour Californians on gender ideology in sports. A recent survey of nearly 3,000 California adults found most supported requiring students to participate on sports teams consistent with their biological sex, including:
- 65% of adults surveyed.
- 64% of likely voters.
- 71% of parents with children in public schools.
But California institutions like the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) remain unwilling to protect girls’ rights.
CIF not only allows students like Hernandez to compete in sports consistent with their subjective “gender identity,” rather than their biological sex, but also:
- Prevents school officials from asking for documentation of a student’s “gender-related identity” unless they have “credible information” indicating it is false.
- Allows students to change their “identity” at will, such that they can compete in a girls’ league one semester and a boys’ league the next.
- Prevents coaches from preemptively moving a boy on a girls’ team to a separate changing area.
- Encourages coaches to prepare girls for a boy to join their team.
- Will not tell parents when a “transgender” athlete joins their child’s team.
Lorey concludes:
From track and field to volleyball, males are dominating girls’ sports across the state, and unless something changes, more girls will lose out as more males take over.
Happily, something is changing. More girls, parents and educators are standing up for equality, safety and biological reality in sports — often at great personal cost.
Please join Daily Citizen in praying for the protection and continued boldness in girls defending their rights.
Additional Articles and Resources
DOJ Lawsuit Describes California Department of Education’s Infuriating Treatment of Girls
Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship
Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies
Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivized to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them
Gavin Newsom and the Dead-End Politics of the Sexual Revolution
Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces
