{"id":16451,"date":"2025-06-13T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T15:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=16451"},"modified":"2025-06-13T15:00:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T15:00:48","slug":"transgender-athlete-responds-to-backlash-after-winning-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=16451","title":{"rendered":"Transgender athlete responds to backlash after winning race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old transgender athlete from Southern California, has spoken out after winning a state track-and-field title amid ongoing public debate and protests surrounding her participation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hernandez, who competes for Jurupa Valley High School, earned gold in the triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) state championship on May 31, finishing with a jump of 42 feet 2 inches. She tied for first place with Kira Grant Hatcher, who recorded a 40-foot-5-inch jump.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the competition, CIF implemented a policy to preserve rankings for cisgender female athletes competing alongside transgender\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.newsner.com\/tag\/athlete\/\">athletes<\/a>. The updated rule ensures that any\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.newsner.com\/tag\/students\/\">student<\/a>\u00a0who placed behind a transgender athlete would retain their position in the rankings. It also allowed for an additional cisgender female competitor in each event Hernandez entered.<\/p>\n<p>Despite these measures, Hernandez\u2019s participation sparked protests at multiple meets, including the state championship. Demonstrators gathered outside the venue, criticizing CIF\u2019s policy and arguing it compromises fairness in girls\u2019 sports.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcra.com\/article\/ab-hernandez-kcra-interview-trans-athlete\/64999556\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">KCRA<\/a>, Hernandez addressed the backlash directly: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely crazy. I get a lot of hate comments, but I\u2019m like, \u2018I don\u2019t care.\u2019 I\u2019m a 16-year-old girl with a mad attitude, you think I\u2019m going to care?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She also described the protestors at high school sporting events as \u201cjust weird,\u201d adding that the atmosphere inside the stadium was overwhelmingly supportive: \u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting any of it, to be honest. I was just expecting to go out there and compete alone, but the support was amazing. They really made my experience perfect. I\u2019ll forever be grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Teen trans athlete AB Hernandez speaks out on experience at track and field championships\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-_FMA8yVlNI?feature=oembed\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Hernandez also tied for first place in the varsity high jump final alongside Jillene Wetteland and Lelanie Laruelle, sharing the podium under the same CIF rule. \u201cI did what I wanted to do,\u201d she said. \u201cMy performance was all I wanted to be good. So all this backlash \u2026 I performed my best, so that\u2019s all I cared about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The controversy has extended beyond the track. President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue, using his platform\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Truth Social<\/a>\u00a0to condemn California\u2019s policy. \u201cCalifornia, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum [sic], continues to ILLEGALLY allow \u2018MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN\u2019S SPORTS,\u2019\u201d Trump posted.<\/p>\n<p>He further threatened to withhold federal funding from the state unless it complied with his February executive order aimed at \u201cprotecting women\u2019s sports.\u201d Though federal education funds, estimated at $250 million, were briefly at risk, the White House ultimately released them amid legal challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would review California\u2019s School Success and Opportunity Act, which allows\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.newsner.com\/tag\/transgender\/\">transgender<\/a>\u00a0students to participate in sports based on gender identity, to determine if it conflicts with Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.<\/p>\n<p><strong>As the legal and political battles continue, Hernandez remains focused on her sport, and unapologetically proud of her performance.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old transgender athlete from Southern California, has spoken out after winning a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":36,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16453,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16451\/revisions\/16453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}