Oregon girls’ athlete says official ordered her out of photo after trans protest

Oregon high school senior Alexa Anderson garnered national attention on Saturday when she refused to share the high jump medal podium with a trans athlete at a state track and field championship meet.

Viral footage of Anderson and fellow girl athlete Reese Eckard stepping down from the podium also showed an official gesturing for them to step to the side.

Anderson alleges the official ordered her and Eckard to get out of the shot of photos if they were not going to stand on the podium.

“We stepped off the podium in protest and, as you can see, the official kind of told us ‘hey, go over there, if you’re not going to participate, get out of the photos,'” Anderson alleged during an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Monday night. 

“They asked us to move away from the medal stand, so when they took the photos, we weren’t even in it at all.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Oregon School Activities Association for comment.

The incident comes weeks after high school sports officials in California allegedly ordered athletes to take off “Protect Girls Sports” T-shirts at a postseason meet featuring a trans athlete.

Anderson added that Saturday was her first time ever competing against a transgender athlete, but she has opposed trans inclusion in girls’ sports prior to that and expressed her belief through social media comments.

“This is the first public stand that I have taken in this issue, but I have privately supported all the girls that have done with positive messages, commenting on posts, just supporting them and letting them know I’m behind them in any way,” Anderson said. 

Anderson, of Tigard High School, finished in third place in the high jump and Eckard, of Sherwood High School, came in fourth, while the trans athlete, of Ida B. Wells High School, took fifth. 

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“It’s unfair because biological males and biological females compete at such different levels that letting a biological male into our competition is taking up space and opportunities from all these hardworking women, the girl in ninth who should have came in eighth and had that podium spot taken away from her, as well as many others,” Anderson said.  

Anderson and Eckard’s situation was only one of many instances of girls having to share competition and medal podiums with biological males at state meets this past weekend.

In California, a nationally-publicized incident involving trans athlete AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School culminated in Hernandez winning two state titles. President Donald Trump warned the state not to let trans athletes compete in the girls’ state title meet, and the Department of Justice has now given California a deadline of June 9 to revise its policy or federal funding cuts may occur.

In Washington, a trans athlete at East Valley High School won the girls’ 400-meter 2A state title on Saturday. In response, multiple girls at Tumwater High School, which was at the center of a controversy involving a girls’ basketball player being reprimanded for refusing to face a trans opponent in the winter, protested Monday during school hours with a large banner sign that read, “This is not a walk out (sic). We are not going anywhere.”

Other girls’ postseason track and field meets that saw trans athletes compete this weekend took place in Maine and Minnesota.

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a nonpartisan research institute, filed a Title IX discrimination complaint against Oregon for its laws that allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports on May 27. 

The complaint was filed to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which has already launched Title IX investigations against high school sports leagues in California, Minnesota, Maine and Massachusetts. 

“Every girl deserves a fair shot – on the field, on the podium, and in life,” said Jessica Hart Steinmann, AFPI’s executive general counsel and vice chair of the Center for Litigation, in a statement. 

“When state institutions knowingly force young women to compete against biological males, they’re violating federal law and sending a devastating message to female athletes across the country.”

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