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On October 13 in Washington, 13 girls on the Camas High School cross-country running team walked off the starting line of a dual meet rather than pretend a boy on their team was one of them. Arms linked, they covered the first 50 meters and stepped off the course. They forfeited the race. After they exited, they hugged each other and cried.
I can only begin to imagine how hard that decision was. The girls had to know they were thrusting themselves into the spotlight on one of the most contentious issues of our time. They were taking a quiet but powerful stand in defense of reality, which would inevitably bring vilification on the most public stage.
They walked off the course because a junior named Logan Mihailoff — who finished 76th in a boys’ junior-varsity race on September 5 with a time of 23:10 — switched to the girls’ team a few weeks later. By September 26, he was second out of 195 in a girls’ race. Days after that, he won a girls’ varsity dual.
On October 10, he ran an 18:36 personal best at the Nike Hole in the Wall XC Invitational and placed in the top third of an elite women’s field. And on the day the girls walked off the course in protest, he finished second.
No amount of “extra training” explains a mid- to lower-pack boy becoming a top-of-the-pack girl in a matter of weeks. Only male puberty explains it.
But this was never just about a race. And it isn’t just about sports.
Does he change in the girls’ locker room? How far does the charade of him being a girl go? Are the girls being told they must give up their privacy and fairness on the course?
The adults in charge are treating the boy’s feelings as more important than the girls’ rights.
Now girls are leaving the team, and others are forfeiting races to make it clear that they won’t pretend he’s a girl.
I keep asking the same question: what are this boy’s parents thinking? How can they watch their son take podium spots from girls and feel any sense of pride? They are teaching him that the truth about his body is a choice, that female categories exist for his use, and that other people’s daughters exist to validate him. They are teaching him that taking what doesn’t belong to him is okay as long as he really wants it. That is not kindness. It is disgraceful parenting.
The parents of the Camas girls who walked have stood with them. But the rest of the country is watching teenage girls do the work adults refuse to do. Whether it is out of cowardice or complacency is unclear. But it is unacceptable. And I am angry about it.
I was an elite gymnast as a child, and I was raised in a culture of coaching abuse.
Parents, governing body officials, judges, and gym employees looked the other way while coaches physically and emotionally abused athletes in plain sight.
When I was heading to Russia for a major international competition in 1986, my own coaches (abusers in their own right) told me to just stay away from him outside the gym; don’t let him in your room. They were referring to the national team coach, Don Peters. The not-so-subtle implication from my coaches and governing body officials was: he’s a great coach. But you need to be careful. And we wouldn’t want to say anything untoward that might ruin his stellar reputation.
I was the first U.S. National Team gymnast to blow the whistle on rampant abuse in the sport in my 2008 book, “Chalked Up.” I wrote it because I didn’t want another child to go through what I had gone through.
The cowardice from adults when they refuse to stand up for young girls both baffles and enrages me. I’ll never sit by and wait for someone else to go first. That attitude is why it took me two decades to recover from my time in gymnastics, despite all of my successes. Because adults refused to do the right thing.
These Camas girls threw themselves into the spotlight where they will inevitably be harassed and bullied and threatened — because the adults would not take a stand first. These girls know the cost coming their way — friends who distance themselves or go silent, name-calling, and outright threats. And these girls did it anyway. They refused to pretend that boy is a girl. Because the truth matters. They matter.
When adults refuse to take that stand, they tell those girls they don’t matter enough. That the boy matters more, so just step aside and be quiet.
My question to parents across the country: how do you watch that and stay quiet? How do you see girls cry after refusing to race a boy and decide your own daughter can handle it? Should handle it! Should be willing to step down from the podium.
Fear of being called a bigot is not a parenting strategy. It’s pathetic. And sets a terrible example for children.
Don’t do the right thing if you’re scared people will call you names! Sell kids out if it means you can avoid people being mean to you!
At this point, any parent’s silence on the matter tells a daughter that her opportunities rank below boys’ feelings.
The people still defending this ideology after Camas have to be willfully blind. They watched a boy declare himself a girl and, within weeks, steal places from girls who trained all season.
What is happening here is a choice to prioritize ideology and a young man’s feelings over the rights of girls.
Adults created this. Sport governing bodies and school administrators enforce the rules that let a boy switch categories mid-season and then stand atop the podium as if he did something special. Teachers and coaches tell the girls to be kind and inclusive while the boy takes their spots and their space.
The girls in Camas refused. The rest of us can keep letting teenagers carry this burden alone, or we can say what is true: boys do not belong in girls’ sports or girls’ private spaces. And boys can never become girls.
Washington voters will have a chance to protect girls’ sports on November 3 to draw that line with Initiative 638. Colorado voters will have the same shot if they vote yes on Prop 134. If these initiatives pass, these will be the first blue states to stand up for the protection of girls’ sports. I hope it’s a watershed moment.
The girls walked. Now the adults need to decide whether they will show the same courage or cower and keep letting the kids bear the cost.
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Jennifer Sey is the CEO of XX-XY Athletics. She is an author, filmmaker, and retired national champion gymnast.
