Four years ago this week, I stepped onto a court fully expecting to compete in another high school volleyball match. Instead, I left with an injury that altered the course of my life. A spike from a male athlete competing on the opposing girls’ team struck me in the head and knocked me unconscious. Years have passed, but I do not get to leave that moment in the past. The concussion, ongoing vision problems, partial paralysis on my right side, headaches, anxiety, and depression remain with me today, acting as constant reminders of both the injury I suffered and the future athletic opportunities it took away.
For me, the debate over males competing in women’s sports has never been a form of abstract political argument; it’s something I’ve lived with the consequences of. It played a large role in why I went to the North Carolina General Assembly in 2023 and told lawmakers what had happened to me. I supported House Bill 574, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, because girls deserve clear rules that protect their safety, preserve fair competition, and ensure that female athletic opportunities are for female athletes.
Roy Cooper had the opportunity to listen to and protect female athletes. Instead, he chose not to.
As governor, Roy Cooper vetoed the bill. He dismissed the effort to protect girls’ sports as a “political culture war” and claimed the protections were “neither fair nor needed.” But there was nothing theoretical about the injury I live with. There is nothing unnecessary about preventing another girl from being carried off a court. And there is nothing unfair about recognizing the biological differences that led us to create separate male and female sports in the first place.
Republicans, thankfully, ultimately overrode Cooper’s veto, but his decision still shows something about him. It showed North Carolinians exactly where he stands when the demands of a far-left agenda collide with the safety and rights of women and girls.
But now, Roy Cooper wants North Carolinians to promote him to the United States Senate. With the November midterm elections approaching, voters should remember what he did when he already held power. Cooper had a chance to stand with female athletes like me. Instead, he backed the far-left agenda.
Michael Whatley offers North Carolina a clear alternative.
As a father to a daughter, Whatley is unequivocally committed to protecting women’s sports. He understands that female athletes should not be forced to surrender their safety, privacy, or opportunities to satisfy a political ideology. In the Senate, he will stand for commonsense protections that keep girls’ sports for girls and defend the integrity of women’s competition.
This issue is bigger than one game, one injury, or one athlete. Across North Carolina and our country, girls spend years practicing before school, staying late after practice, and sacrificing their time for the chance to compete. They deserve to know that the adults who are supposed to protect them will not go and change the rules against them after they’ve done everything asked of them.
Every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of one’s ideology or beliefs. But compassion cannot mean asking female athletes to accept unnecessary physical risks and competitive costs of policies they did not create. Girls should not have to be injured before their concerns are taken seriously. They need leaders willing to protect them before the next serve, the next race, or the next starting whistle.
The contrasts in this Senate race could not be clearer. Roy Cooper followed the far-left and vetoed protections for female athletes. Michael Whatley has listened to women and pledged to defend us. President Trump invited me as a special guest to his joint speech to Congress in Washington, D.C. This is not an anniversary I ever wanted to mark. But if remembering what happened four years ago can help prevent another girl from suffering the same fate, then I will continue telling my story. North Carolina’s daughters deserve a senator who will hear them, believe them, and fight for them.
This November, that candidate is Michael Whatley.