Oregon athletes leave high school track and field championship podium over trans competitor: video
Two Oregon high school athletes refused to share the podium with a transgender competitor at the state's track and field championships, footage shows.
The female students — Tigard High School's Alexa Anderson and Sherwood High School's Reese Eckard — stepped down from the high jump podium as the winners of the competition were being announced across the Eugene stadium Saturday night.
Anderson and Eckard had finished in third and fourth place, while Ida B. Wells High School's trans student Lia Rose tied for fifth.
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Oregon high schoolers Alexa Anderson and Reese Eckard stepped down from the high jump podium when a transgender teen tied for fifth place.
America First Policy Institute
Rose had competed in boys' track and field divisions as recently as 2024 and 2023, according to Fox News.
Crowds were cheering for the athletes throughout the ceremony, and it remains unclear how the audience reacted to the protest.
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A race official showed up shortly after Anderson and Eckard stepped down and ushered them away as they stood with their backs to the podium.
It remains unclear if their standing at the competition was affected by the move.
But the incident quickly gained attention online, especially after women's sports advocate Riley Gaines — who is staunchly opposed to transgenders athletes competing in women's sports — posted footage from it on X.
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'Watch this. Two female athletes in Oregon refused to stand on the podium because a boy was awarded a place,' Gaines wrote.
'Girls have had enough,' she added.
The video was also picked up by other accounts — including 'Libs of TikTok' — which praised the athletes' act of defiance.
It was just the latest incident where women's athletes have protested against transgender competitors in their division.
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In April, women's fencer Stephanie Turner took a knee rather than competing with a trans person during a Maryland match, and was put on a year-long probation by USA Fencing for the move.
And in May, 16-year-old high schooler Reese Hogan finished second to a trans athlete in California's CIF Southern Section Finals triple jump competition — but stepped up to the first place spot on the podium after her competitor stepped down.
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New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Runner who stepped off podium with trans athlete speaks out
High-school track star Alexa Anderson decided to step down — off the championship podium — for what she believes, when faced with the prospect of sharing the honor with a transgender competitor. 'I knew that something needs to be done to bring attention to this issue and to let the people who are in charge know that us athletes are not okay with the position they put us in,' the 18-year-old told The Post. On Saturday, Anderson, a senior competing for Tigard High School, took third place in the Oregon State Athletic Association's Girls High Jump Final while Lia Rose, a transgender athlete from Ida B. Wells High School took fifth. Anderson jumped 5 feet 4.25 inches, compared to Rose's 5 feet 1.65 inches. Advertisement 5 Alexa Anderson and Reese Eckard stepped down off the podium in protest on Saturday. America First Policy Institute When the top eight jumpers took the podium, Anderson and fourth-place runner Reese Eckard, a senior from Sherwood High School, stepped down in unison and turned their backs in protest. 'I was definitely stressed just with all those eyes on you, kind of looking at you wondering what you're doing and why,' Anderson said. 'But all female athletes, no matter if they are in elementary school, middle school or high school … I want them to have a fair and equal opportunity to compete.' Advertisement Going into the meet, Anderson knew that she wouldn't stand on the podium if Rose, who had competed in the boy's division in 2023 and 2024, placed. She and Eckart, who had been a 'friendly competitor' for the past four years, had already made a pact to step down together. 5 Alexa Anderson has been running track since she was a freshman in high school. Alexa Anderson/ Instagram She claims several other girls who made the podium had also intended to join, but backed down in the moment: 'It's a very controversial topic, and I think some people are more inclined to express their concerns privately.' The crowd at Hayward Field reacted with silence, and an official confronted the pair. When they said they weren't participating, the official told them to step aside and get out of the way of photos. Advertisement Even though she and Eckart were the only ones to take a public stand, she says Rose's presence in the sport had caused upset among her teammates throughout the season. 5 Anderson says several other girls on the podium planned to step down but ultimately backed down from the plan. Fox News 'The overall sentiment was kind of confused and concerned for the integrity of our sport,' she explained. 'Girls I talked to were worried that their opportunities were going to be taken away, or that they wouldn't make it to the championship because there was a biological man that was jumping better than them.' Since the incident, there's been an outpouring of private support, and Anderson reports receiving 'a lot of kind messages from people thanking me for standing up for what I believe in.' There have also been people who were less than kind. Advertisement 'Some people are definitely coming at me with a hateful attitude,' she admitted. 'There are people at school that are offended and are talking behind my back, but I expected that going into this, when I put myself out there on such a controversial topic.' 5 Anderson is committed to run track and field at the University of South Alabama next school year. Alexa Anderson/ Instagram Anderson, who joined the track team as a freshman, is graduating Thursday and plans to attend the University of South Alabama, where she will study exercise science and marine biology and is committed to run track and field. She said she supports a federal mandate banning trans athletes from female sports. President Trump enacted one in February via Title IX, but states including Oregon have continued to allow athletes to compete nonetheless. 'Title IX was originally used to ban sex-based discrimination in sports, and now we're facing sex-based discrimination again,' Anderson said. 'Biological women are being forced to compete with biological men, but the purpose of Title IX was to make sure that it didn't happen, that biological women had their equal opportunities.' 5 President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning trans athletes from women's sports in February. AP Anderson is legally represented by American First Policy Institute. A staff member told The Post they called on the federal government to investigate possible Title IX violations related to Saturday's race and are considering further litigation. 'I have been an athlete my whole life, and women's sports has done so much for me personally,' she said. 'By allowing biological men to compete in the women's division, we're taking away opportunities from other young girls who have worked so hard to get to where they are.'
Fox News
a day ago
- Fox News
Oregon girls open up on 'traumatic' trans athlete experiences that pushed them to fight back
Oregon high school senior Alexa Anderson is now a budding conservative heroine, but she comes from a family of Democrats. When the Tigard High School track and field star refused to stand on the same podium as a trans athlete at the state championship on Saturday, alongside fellow medalist Reese Eckard, Anderson learned right away the treatment an act like that prompted from the political side her family traditionally aligned with. "When me and Reese stepped down there was definitely some confusion, there was definitely some anger and just a lot of people who didn't understand why were were doing this, and it was scary. Everyone was looking at us," Anderson told Fox News Digital. "There was a lot of people on and off the field. I heard shouts of them telling us to get out of the way." The backlash did not end on the field. "There has also been a handful of people that just really don't understand that are reaching out and are calling me a bad person," she added. "When I received one of the first hate comments I kind of just brushed it off, I responded saying 'thank you for sharing your opinion, I respect your opinion, this is mine and this is what I stood for' but it didn't really bother me too much because I was prepared for it, I knew this was going to happen, and I have so many people behind me, supporting me and that number greatly outweighs the people who have been hateful toward me." Anderson was warned by friends, coaches and family about what would happen if she took the stand she took. However, she felt she had to do something as soon as she found out she would be competing against the trans athlete last week. The teen considered withdrawing from the competition altogether, but could not bring herself to waste all of her hard work to get to that point. So she and Eckard came up with the podium idea. Anderson had never even competed against a trans athlete herself in competition prior to that point, but she felt compelled to demonstrate her opposition for the sake of the other girls across the country, especially in her state, who have been impacted by trans inclusion. One of those girls is Glencoe High School junior Lily Hammond. As a sophomore in the winter of 2023-24, Hammond said she unknowingly competed against and shared a locker room with a biological male opponent on another team. She said she competed against the athlete multiple times, assuming the athlete was a biological female. "It wasn't until the last meet that I realized 'oh, that is a trans person,' and by that point it was too late," Hammond told Fox News Digital. "The shock that came was the mistrust and the lying, I felt very betrayed, I felt betrayed by the adults and the coaches on the other team that let it happen without my consent and my knowledge. My team didn't know, my coach didn't know… I felt very violated knowing that a man could have seen me changing." Hammond said she already had to deal with transgender students at her high school entering the girls' restrooms on a regular basis, but she called the experience with her swim team "traumatic." "At the time it was overwhelming and felt traumatic since I was kept in the dark," she said. Hammond is not the only Oregon girl "traumatized" by the issue either. Forest Grove High School senior Maddie Eischen and Newberg High School junior Sophia Carpenter were faced with the prospect of competing against a trans athlete in a state competition called the Chehalem Classic back on April 18. So both of them refused to compete. "I found out the day before, which led to me feeling the need to scratch myself from the meet. The whole day I had anxiety," Eischen told Fox News Digital. "My experience at the Chehalem track meet and scratching myself from the meet was traumatic, something I never imagined ever having to do." Carpenter said she found herself so overwhelmed with emotion from the experience, that she cried on the ride home after the meet. "It was emotionally traumatic trying to know what I should do and how I should respond to competing with [the trans athlete]," Carpenter said. The experience pushed Carpenter to make a visible point when she competed at the state championships this weekend. She showed up to her high jump competition sporting a T-shirt from the activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics. Now, beyond just speaking up against the state's current laws that enable males in their sports, Anderson, Hammond and Carpenter suggested the issue will play heavily into how they vote in future political elections. "Just this last election, looking at the different beliefs between the two candidates, you had one candidate who openly believes biological men should be allowed in women's restrooms and women's sports, and was not doing anything, and then you had another candidate who said 'this will be one of the first things I change,' and that's what Donald Trump did," Hammond said. "In the future, that's something I'm going to look for." Carpenter added, "I've always believed in voting based on the constitution… and while Title IX was not one of the first things that was brought up when our country was created, it goes back to the first amendment and basic human rights, and women deserve these rights too, and right now they're being given to men who feel a certain way." Additionally, while the trans athletes that each of the girls faced played into their trauma, their stand against the state's liberal laws on the issue is not directed at those individuals. It is directed at the lawmakers and education officials who have enabled the males to get to that point. "I feel that they've just been misled," Hammond said. "The faculty at my school is feeding this, the faculty at other schools are feeding this saying 'it's okay if you want to be another person.'" In the last few days, Oregon has become one of the nation's heated battlegrounds on the issues, as the state represents symbolic significance in the sport of track and field. Eugene, Oregon, nicknamed "TrackTown USA," often hosts the World Athletics Championships, U.S. Olympic Trials and NCAA Championships. Now, Anderson's stunt at the high school state championship has put the state under a national microscope and a legal firm has already taken steps to bring federal action against the state. While the Trump administration has focused much of its attention on the issues in Maine and California, launching federal investigations and even a Department of Justice lawsuit against Maine, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) filed a civil rights complaint calling for federal intervention. "Our investigation into Title IX and First Amendment violations in Oregon is about standing up for girls and women sidelined, silenced, and stripped of the fairness and freedom they're guaranteed under federal law," AFPI senior legal strategy attorney Leigh Ann O'Neill told Fox News Digital. "When young women are told to compete against male athletes or stay quiet—or, worse, are punished for speaking the truth—we have to act. Because no one is above the Constitution—not even state sports officials." Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Oregon track star wages legal battle against trans athlete policy after medal ceremony protest
An Oregon high school track star is speaking out after refusing to stand on the podium with a transgender athlete, saying her protest was about fairness – not hate. 'I just didn't think that it's fair to biological females to allow and encourage biological males to compete among us, not only for myself and the other girl that stepped down, but the girl who should have been on the podium and the girl who didn't even get to go to state because she was beaten by a biological male at districts,' athlete Alexa Anderson said on 'Fox & Friends.' Advertisement 'It is not about hate or transphobia at all. It's about protecting women's rights and their right to fair and equal competition within sports.' Anderson and another athlete named Reese Eckard, who finished in third and fourth place in the Oregon State Athletic Association's Girls High Jump finale, respectively, stood behind the podium during the ceremony because they refused to stand next to the transgender student, Liaa Rose, who placed fifth, according to the New York Post. An official behind the event allegedly told those protesting to 'step aside' and 'get out' of the photos. 3 Reese Eckard and Alexa Anderson protest the girls' high jump medal ceremony at the Oregon State high school championships at Hayward Field on May 31, 2025. America First Policy Institute Advertisement 3 Alexa Anderson speaks out on her legal battle during a recent interview with 'Fox and Friends.' 'I was very shocked and kind of stressed with all the eyes and attention on us, so I complied with what he said, but I am a little bit frustrated that people were angry with us rather than supportive of our movement,' Anderson continued. During the 'Fox & Friends' appearance, Anderson's attorney Jessica Steinmann spelled out the legal action currently in motion, sharing that America First Policy Institute filed a complaint with the US Department of Education to request that they investigate the Oregon Department of Education. 'The law that was meant to protect our girls, Title IX, is now being weaponized against them. On top of that, they are now being sidelined and there's clear First Amendment issues as well,' she shared. Advertisement 3 Eckard and Anderson refused to share the podium with transgender athlete Liaa Rose who tied for fifth in the event. @LaLONeill/X Steinmann said female athletes today are losing medal access, scholarships and economic opportunities to biological males allegedly stealing their thunder. The incident came on the heels of a controversy in neighboring California, where trans athlete AB Hernandez won two state titles against female competitors.
