A volleyball play between a transgender male-bodied athlete who severely injured their female opponent was reportedly posted online as part of a “highlight reel” for college recruiters.
To recap, Townhall reported this week how a North Carolina high school volleyball player sustained a serious head injury after a transgender player, who is a biological male, spiked the ball at her head “abnormally fast.” The trans athlete spiked the ball at about 70 mph, the Daily Mail reported.
As a result, Cherokee County Board of Education voted 5-1 for the Hiwassee Dam High School girls volleyball team to forfeit games against Highlands School. The injured player played for Hiwassee Dam and is recovering from “long-term concussion symptoms,” including vision problems.“The county will not participate in any volleyball games, varsity or junior varsity, against Highlands due to safety concerns,” the board said, according to a write-up of the meeting.
According to the board’s document, Hiwassee Dam’s athletic director, David Payne, supported the decision, claiming that “there is a competitive advantage and a safety concern for certain teams – it’s not the same for all teams.” He added that there were “mixed feelings” from athletes about competing against Highlands in the future.
On Tuesday night, Outkick reported that a YouTube user posted a video online that included the transgender player’s vicious spike as a “highlight.” The video slows down and draws a green circle around the player who injured their opponent.
The comments under the video were critical.
“How many girls were harmed in the making of this video?” one user wrote.
“I sure hope this dude didn’t steal a scholarship from some actual deserving female,” another wrote.
Others described it as “shameful,” “ridiculous” and “sick.”
Earlier this year, the issue of males competing in women’s sports came to light because of Will “Lia” Thomas, who competed on the women’s swim team at University of Pennsylvania after competing on the men’s team for three consecutive years. Thomas made headlines for breaking records competing against women and taking home an NCAA Division I title at the NCAA championships in March. Deserving female athletes lost their opportunity to compete in the championships in their final year of college because of Thomas.
"I have firsthand knowledge of what it feels like to line up next to a male-bodied athlete," world champion track athlete Cynthia Monteleone told Townhall in an interview on the 50th anniversary of Title IX. "I'm also a coach to young athletes and Olympians. And for my young athletes, it's really important that when I teach them lessons like 'hard work pays off' that that rings true...that lesson falls apart when they have to line up next to someone who, quite literally, can be a mediocre athlete and still win."
Monteleone is not alone. Several female athletes I spoke to that day shared similar experiences with me.
Madison Kenyon, a student-athlete at Idaho State University, told Townhall that she raced against a biological male athlete who identifies as a female five times. She told me how, as a freshman, she went into her first race against this individual with an "open mind" because the athlete had taken testosterone suppression.
"They didn't only beat me, but they beat hundreds of other athletes," Kenyon explained. "It really hit me on the podium when my team and I were watching the awards and this athlete was up there. It didn't look like a girl on the podium. It looked like a man standing on a podium with girls."
Kim Jones, a former all-American tennis player, is the mother of a female Ivy League swimmer who competed against Thomas last season. She told me the experience inspired her to co-found an advocacy group to protect women’s sports.
"Last year, my daughter had to race Lia Thomas in the Ivy League throughout the year. And what I learned is that women are easily cast aside and told to be quiet when they face an injustice. It's just not the world I'm willing to leave for my granddaughters," Jones said. "Women deserve respect, they deserve fair competition, they deserve equal access to opportunities relative to their male counterparts. I'm passionate about preserving that for the next group of women."
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