These Girls Walked Off the Course to Defend Fairness in Their Sport

When the starting gun sounded at a cross-country meet in Camas, Washington, on Oct. 13, more than half of the Camas High School girls at the starting line didn’t race. Thirteen of the 24 walked the first 50 meters or so—some with arms linked—and stepped off the course.

They gave up a race they had trained for. And they did it on purpose.

The girls were protesting a policy that requires them to compete against a male teammate—a boy who identifies as a girl and started the season on the boys’ team. Their walk-off was quiet, peaceful, yet impossible to ignore. Video of it quickly spread across the country.

These girls shouldn’t have had to make that choice. But their courage shows everyone what’s at stake when government officials ignore the differences between boys and girls.

From 76th to 1st place in 24 days

The results tell the story.

On Sept. 5, this male athlete ran a boys’ junior varsity 5,000-meter race and finished 76th. Later that month, he began competing in girls’ races. On Sept. 26, only three weeks later, he placed second in a girls’ junior varsity race, finishing ahead of 193 girls. Three days later, he won a girls’ varsity race.

That’s 76th place to first place in just 24 days.

That jump didn’t happen because he became an elite runner overnight. It happened because he started racing against girls. Males are generally bigger, faster, and stronger than females. They have larger hearts and lungs, denser bones, and stronger muscles. That’s the reason girls’ sports exist in the first place.

And at the race the Camas girls walked away from, he finished second.

The policy behind the protest

The Camas School District says it is following state rules. For nearly 20 years, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has allowed students to compete on teams that match their gender identity. A male athlete doesn’t need medical or legal documentation to join a girls’ team.

Under Washington’s current policy, a girl’s only real way to stand up for fairness is to forfeit. While the district has made room for girls to give up their race in protest, it hasn’t made room for them to compete on a level field.

The Camas runners weren’t the first to walk off this season. On Sept. 15, two runners from nearby Skyview High School stepped off the course during a meet against Camas for the same reason.

What girls lose

This isn’t about one runner. It’s about every girl in the race. At the Sept. 26 meet alone, this male athlete finished ahead of 193 girls, and each of them lost a place she had earned. His coach expects him to compete in the district, bi-district, and state championships, where every spot he takes is one a girl doesn’t get.

Over a season, that adds up to lost podium spots, lost records, and lost chances to advance. Some girls eventually lose their love for the sport altogether. That’s the heartbreak too often ignored. As ADF CEO, President, and Chief Counsel Kristen Waggoner put it, girls in this situation are “left abandoned on the sidelines, grappling with a devastating but unmistakable message: ‘You don’t matter.’”

Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect—including the male athlete at the center of this story. But ignoring reality isn’t the way to do that. When policies ignore reality, girls pay the price.

The fight for fairness in Washington

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox that states may protect girls’ and women’s sports based on sex. Alongside Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador and West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, Alliance Defending Freedom helped defend West Virginia’s and Idaho’s laws and represented female athletes in both cases. The Court recognized that separate teams for males and females are reasonable based on concerns about safety and fairness.

But that ruling allows states to protect girls’ sports. It doesn’t require them to. Washington hasn’t, so its policy remains in place for now.

ADF is working to change that. At a girls’ wrestling tournament last December, Kallie Keeler, a high school wrestler in Washington, was directed to the mat against an opponent she and her mother believed was a girl. The opponent was male, and he sexually assaulted her during the match. Kallie and her mother sued, but two federal courts denied them protection. So on Oct. 2, ADF attorneys asked the Supreme Court to step in before wrestling season opens. That request is still pending.

What happened in Camas is part of the same story: Washington’s policy is still harming girls.

As Kristen explained, Washington’s approach is “a deliberate decision to treat girls worse than boys and demand sacrifices from them that boys don’t have to make.” That is unlawful sex discrimination under Title IX, and ADF is asking the Court to stop it.

The girls who walked off the course

The Camas girls didn’t ask for a spotlight. They just wanted a fair race. Female athletes deserve the opportunity to excel at their sport and experience the thrill of victory. That opportunity disappears when girls are forced to compete against boys.

These young women gave up a race to make that point. They shouldn’t have had to. But by walking off the course, they reminded the country of something it never should have forgotten: Boys and girls are different, and girls deserve their own sports in recognition of that.