A male athlete identifying as a female is advancing toward the California state championships, vowing he won’t stop in spite of parent and school member protests.
After placing at the Yorba Linda High School track meet last weekend, transgender athlete AB Hernandez, 16, is one step closer to the state championships, according to the news outlet Capital and Main.
“You really can’t get a team like mine anywhere else. My team is very special, very diverse. We have probably one of the strongest bonds known. We’re probably unbreakable,” Hernandez said. “Everyone tells me, ‘Well, you gotta win now, you got to win. You got to let the haters talk about something new.’”
Parents and school board members heckled the trans athlete during the pivotal May 10 track meet.
“That’s a boy! That is a biological boy!” one protester yelled during the event.
Hernandez, who attends Jurupa Valley High School, fired back at protesters during an interview with Capital and Main.
“There’s nothing I can do about people’s actions, just focus on my own,” Hernandez said. “I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person.”
AB Hernandez, a student at Jurupa Valley High School, has been the target of a right-wing campaign to ban trans athletes from California youth sports.
A group of adults, including two elected officials, gathered to heckle 16-year-old transgender athlete during her track meet. pic.twitter.com/LSUIARuO5o
— capitalandmain.bsky.social (@capitalandmain) May 15, 2025
Should schools that allow transgender athletes lose all federal, state, and local funds?
Some of the protesters were members of the Save Girls Sports association, including Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District, a different district that Hernandez’s.
“In 2026, my biggest goal is to make sure communities across California elect [school board] members who are going to stand up and say no,” Shaw said. “We’re asking for President Trump to pull the funding. We have to have the funding pulled so girls can win.”
Another protester was a former gym teacher at Hernandez’s school, Jessica Tapia, who is also a member of the Save Girls Sports association. In an earlier incident, the school fired Tapia for not acknowledging the pronouns of self-described transgender students.
Hernandez placed first in the triple jump, third in the long jump, and eighth in the high jump.
“All I thought was, I don’t think you understand that this puts your idiotic claims to trash. ‘She can’t be beat because she’s biologically male.’ Now you have no proof that I can’t be beat,” Hernandez said.
But Hernandez had crushed the female competition at earlier events.
During a February meet, he won first after clearing 40 feet in the triple jump event, eight feet further than the runner-up female had jumped, the New York Post reported. He also placed first in the high jump and in the long jump that day.
At another event the next weekend he placed first again in both the triple and long jumps.
With his most recent victory, Hernandez is well on his way to competing in the May 30 and 31 competitions: the California Interscholastic Federation State Track & Field Championships.
“It’s frustrating to have a daughter that might be the one girl that doesn’t advance because there’s someone else that’s going to take a spot from an actual biological girl. Athletics, physicality — it’s about body types, period,” a father told Capital and Main.
“There are two body types. There’s not a continuum. That’s science fiction,” the father said.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
