If you’ve been around right-wing media lately, you’d think the biggest news of the past couple days is transgender athlete AB Hernandez’s performance at the CIF State Track & Field Championships.
Hernandez, biologically male, competes against biologically female athletes, which provokes the sort of response you’d expect.
Headlines like “Jurupa Valley transgender athlete AB Hernandez wins titles at CIF State Track & Field Championships” certainly help fuel the fire on X, because people on X don’t actually read articles. If they did, they’d see this explanation: “Under CIF policy, transgender athletes who place at the state championships receive medals but do not displace cisgender girls in the final standings.”
Indeed, if you look at the final standings, you’d notice that whatever Hernandez places, another athlete shares the spot. If Hernandez is first, another athlete will be ranked first. If Hernandez comes in third, another athlete will be ranked third. And so on.
The CIF’s balancing act of allowing transgender students to compete alongside athletes with whom they identify isn’t the worst solution. It rightly recognizes the significant impact of biological sex development in athletics. And it neutralizes concerns about transgender athletes hurting the prospects of female athletes by essentially allowing trans athletes to compete alongside but not to the detriment of female athletes.
But Fox News pundit and Republican gubernatorial candidate decided to go all-in on the culture war red meat the high school competition kicks up by joining a rally outside it. Meanwhile, adults all over X can be seen derisively calling Hernandez a male, “Abraham,” or getting into the weeds of how Hernandez’s performance compares to the boys.
It’s all pretty pathetic. Think what you will about transgender identities and the often awkward efforts to accommodate them, but picking on high schoolers is pretty low. One can stick up for female athletes and defend female sports without singling out and effectively mass cyberbullying a high school athlete.
AB Hernandez isn’t the problem here. Unthinking ideologues are the problem.
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com