On Oct. 13 in Washington, 13 girls from the Camas High School cross-country running team walked off the starting line in a dual race, not pretending one of the boys on the team was one of them. Arm in hand, they ran the first 50 meters and then walked off the track. They gave up the game. After they came out, they hugged each other and cried.
I can only begin to imagine how difficult this decision must have been. Girls must know that they are putting themselves in the spotlight on one of the most controversial issues of our time. They take a quiet but powerful stance in defense of reality that will inevitably bring vilification on the most public stage.
They left the field because a junior named Logan Mihaioff finished 76th in the boys’ junior varsity race on Sept. 5 with a time of 23 minutes and 10 seconds before switching to the girls team a few weeks later. By September 26, he was in second place among 195 women. A few days later, he won the girls’ varsity doubles championship.
On October 10, he ran a personal best of 18 minutes and 36 seconds at the Nike Hole in the Wall XC Invitational and placed in the top three in the elite women’s category. He finished second on a day when the girls walked off the course in protest.
No amount of “extra training” can explain why a low- to mid-level boy becomes a top girl in a matter of weeks. Only male puberty can explain this.
But it’s not just a game. This isn’t just about sports.
Was he changing in the girls’ locker room? How far will his disguise as a girl go? Are girls being told they must give up privacy and fairness in the curriculum?
Responsible adults consider boys’ feelings to be more important than girls’ rights.
Now, the girls are leaving the team and others are abandoning the game to make it clear that they won’t pretend he’s a girl.
I kept asking the same question: What were this boy’s parents thinking? How can they feel proud watching their son take the podium from a girl? They taught him that the truth about his body was a choice, that the female category existed for his use, and that other people’s daughters existed to validate him. They taught him that it was okay to take things that didn’t belong to him if he really wanted to. That’s not kindness. This is a shameful way to parent.
The parents of the walking Camas girls also stood with them. But the rest of the country is watching teenage girls do jobs that adults refuse to do. It’s unclear whether this was due to cowardice or complacency. But this is unacceptable. I’m angry about this.
I was an elite gymnast as a kid and I grew up in a culture of abusive coaches.
Parents, governing body officials, judges and gym employees turned a blind eye while coaches physically and emotionally abused athletes in plain sight.
In 1986, when I traveled to Russia for a big international tournament, my own coaches (who were abusers themselves) told me to stay away from him outside the gym; don’t let him in your room. They were referring to national team coach Don Peters. The not-so-subtle hints from my coaches and governing body officials were: He’s an excellent coach. But you need to be careful. We don’t want to say anything bad that might ruin his reputation.
I was the first U.S. national team gymnast to expose rampant abuse in the sport in my 2008 book, Chalk. I write this because I don’t want another child to go through what I went through.
I am confused and angry at the cowardice of adults when they refuse to stand up for young girls. I will never wait for someone else to go first. This attitude is why it took me twenty years to recover from my gymnastics career, despite all my success. Because adults refuse to do the right thing.
These Camas girls put themselves in the spotlight, where they will inevitably be harassed, bullied, and threatened—because adults won’t take a stand first. These girls know the price they will pay – alienated or silenced friends, name-calling and outright threats. These girls did it anyway. They refuse to pretend that boys are girls. Because the truth matters. them matter.
When adults refuse to take this stance, they tell those girls that they are not important enough. That boy is more important, so step aside and stay quiet.
My question to parents across the country is: How do you take this and keep quiet? What do you think of a girl crying after refusing to play a boy and deciding her own daughter can handle it? should Deal with it! should Be willing to step down from the podium.
Fear of being called a bigot is not a parenting strategy. How sad. And sets a terrible example for children.
If you’re afraid people will abuse you, don’t do the right thing! If selling your kids would prevent people from being mean to you!
At this point, any parent’s silence on the matter tells the daughter that her chances are lower than the boy’s feelings.
Those who still defend this ideology after Camas must be willfully blind. They watched a boy announce that he was a girl and within weeks steal a spot from a girl who had been training all season.
What’s happening here is a choice that puts ideology and young people’s feelings ahead of girls’ rights.
Adults created this. Sports governing bodies and school administrators enforce rules that allow a boy to change categories mid-season and then stand on the podium as if he has done something special. Teachers and coaches tell girls to be kind and inclusive, while boys take their place and space.
The girls in Camas refused. The rest of us can continue to let teenagers carry this burden alone, or we can tell the truth: boys don’t belong in girls’ sports or in girls’ personal spaces. And a boy can never become a girl.
Washington voters will have a chance to protect women’s sports on November 3 by drawing a line under Proposition 638. Colorado voters will have the same opportunity if they vote yes on Proposition 134. If these proposals pass, these states would be the first blue states to come out in support of protecting women’s sports. I hope this is a watershed moment.
The girls left. Now, adults need to decide whether to show the same courage or hold back and continue to let their children bear the cost.
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Jennifer Sey is the CEO of XX-XY Athletics. She is an author, filmmaker and retired national gymnastics champion.