Veronica Garcia’s state championship is being met with tons of backlash.
Garcia, a senior at East Valley High School in Spokane, Washington, took home the girls’ 400-meter 2A state title on Saturday. Garcia is a transgender female.
Garcia, according to the Seattle Times, was heckled before the race and was booed after it.
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But the criticism did not end on Saturday. With students back at school after the weekend, high school girls decided to take matters into their own hands.
Numerous girls from Tumwater High School in Tumwater protested during school hours with a large banner sign that read, “This is not a walk out (sic). We are not going anywhere.”
Other signs read “XX,” “protest female sports” and other similar messages.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) issued the following statement to Fox News Digital: “The WIAA continues to proudly represent the 225,000+ student-participants across the state. The Association is aware of the protest by Tumwater HS students.”
The Tumwater girls’ team finished in third place in the meet. Reese Heryford finished in 15th place in a preliminary run for the 400 meters, failing to be in the necessary top eight to qualify for the final.
Garcia said the boos were “expect[ed].”
“I’ll be honest, I kind of expect it,” Garcia told the Seattle Times. “But it maybe didn’t have their intended effect. It made me angry, but not angry as in I wanted to give up, but angry as in I’m going to push.
“I’m going to put this in the most PG-13 way. I’m just going to say it’s a damn shame they don’t have anything else better to do. I hope they get a life. But oh well. It just shows who they are as people.”
Garcia, who ran the race in 55.70 seconds, won by over a full second. That time would have been the slowest by any boy, even in the preliminary rounds. Garcia also won a state championship last year and complained about the lack of sportsmanship from fellow competitors.
Garcia’s victory came roughly a week after the Quilcene School District in Washington voted, 3-2, to keep sports competition based on athletes’ birth gender, a move that defies state law.
The WIAA, enacted in 2007, allows transgender students to participate based on their gender identity.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February to keep biological boys out of girls’ and women’s sports, but Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, who once said it would be “inaccurate” to say there are only two genders, said the order defies state law.
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