What started as a dispute involving teen athletes in southwest Washington has ballooned into a viral controversy.
A group of high school girls from Camas walked off the field of a cross-country match Tuesday to protest a transgender teammate. The trans runner had recently joined the girls’ team after competing with boys earlier in the season. Video of the walkoff was shared widely online, amid a highly charged political atmosphere in the state.
Washington voters will decide next month whether to ban trans girls from girls’ school sports. That measure has drawn national media attention, which helped fan the flames of controversy in Camas.
The trans runner, a junior at Camas High School, was a member of the boys’ cross-country team on Sept. 5, placing 76th in a 5,000-meter junior varsity race at a regional match. Later that month, the student was running with the girls, despite pushback from some on the team.
In a meet on Sept. 26, the student placed second in the girl’s junior varsity 5,000-meter. On Sept. 29, she attended another match and placed first in the varsity 5,000-meter event. She has competed in at least three additional girls’ matches. Her family did not respond to a request for comment.
A blog called “He Cheated,” which advocates against trans girls in girls’ sports and publicizes the identities of athletes using crowd-sourced and public information, posted the student’s name and race results. (KUOW and KNKX are not naming the student, who is a minor.)
Right-wing influencer Brandi Kruse amplified the story. On Oct. 5, she posted on X about how the student’s stats improved after switching teams. That post was viewed nearly 26,000 times. Two days later, Kruse interviewed two students and a parent who opposed the runner participating in girls’ matches, and she posted a photo showing the trans runner standing among shorter teammates.
“Gee, which one is the boy?” Kruse wrote.
On Oct. 8, the Camas School District acknowledged the media attention in a blog post.
“We understand this topic brings a range of perspectives and emotions,” wrote district Communications Director Doreen McKercher.
McKercher also said that the “district is responsible for following applicable laws and rules.”
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, which oversees middle and high school sports in the state, has allowed kids to participate on teams that align with their gender identity for nearly 20 years. The association has told KUOW and KNKX that it knows of fewer than 10 trans athletes competing on school sports teams statewide.
On Oct. 13, half of the 24 cross-country runners on the Camas High School girls team protested their trans teammate at a match against Battle Ground High School in Camas. A local anti-trans activist, Amy Sousa, posted a video showing the girls walking away from the race.
National media outlets picked up the story. Riley Gaines, a former college swimming champion and prominent critic of trans athletes playing on girls’ teams, also weighed in.
On Wednesday, a track meet that included Camas High School and three other schools had to move locations due to security concerns, according to reporting from The Columbian. The league overseeing that move did not comment to KUOW and KNKX.
Chris Reykdal, head of the state’s education agency, told KIRO news that the girls who protested their teammate have a right to protest if they disagree with state policy.
“The much larger issue here is — can we accommodate 10, 12, 15 kids a year, and make them feel included. Or do we have to go through an initiative process where every single girl has to prove through one of three methods that she is a girl in order to participate?” Reykdal said.
Washington state’s ballot initiative (I-638), introduced by the conservative group Let’s Go Washington, seeks to ban trans girls from girls’ sports by requiring athletes who want to play on a women’s team to submit proof that they’re not trans. It could require them to get genital exams, cheek swabs, or blood tests that currently are not required to participate. While half of states have some sort of ban on trans girls in girls’ sports, critics of Washington’s measure say it would be the harshest measure of its kind.
Polling from left and right-leaning groups suggest the measure could pass in November.
Those who oppose the ban are noting that the media blitz around the Camas runner is coming within weeks of a contentious vote on the issue of trans athletes.
”The timing of this particular team protest seems really telling in relation to the election and Initiative 638,” said John Gallagher, a former high school cross-country coach based in Bellevue. “To me, this is a matter of some of the adults in the situation stepping in, overstepping, and in telling these student athletes what they need to do in order to make a statement.”
He added that he has coached trans runners on cross-country teams with cisgender students and he never encountered walkoffs or pushback.
“There are going to be individual differences in a sport inevitably, no matter what,” Gallagher said. “However, it just feels so antithetical to the ethos of cross-country to spend this much time and effort and energy focusing on one person, one teammate. And you know, I always wanna remind people, this is one child.”
Stephen Reed, spokesperson for the state Democratic Party, said that conservatives have seized on the issue of trans athletes in a way that progressives haven’t been able to match.
“We are behind the eight ball when it comes to the social media mob tactics that the right is able to pull off, and that’s partially because we have so many diverse voices speaking out on so many issues that it’s hard to engage on the manufactured outrage that the right is very good at ginning up,” he said.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association would not provide a comment on the situation in Camas, deferring instead to the school district. KUOW and KNKX reached out to the district but did not receive a response.
Kate Stone contributed reporting.
