VIOLENT protests have erupted in California after a trans athlete served a crushing defeat to female rivals at the state championship.
AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old, excelled in the women’s long jump and triple jump events at a sports competition despite the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s executive order that aims to bar transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.
The student will compete again today at the finals of the Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Masters Meet.
But a crowd of angry parents confronted Hernandez’s mother at the last event to complain that a trans athlete was competing against their daughters.
It has now turned into a heated row with dozens of protestors carrying out demonstrations to “save girls sports”.
Protesters were seen carrying placards and boards outside the Veterans’ Memorial Stadium, where the sporting event took place.
A banner reading “NO BOYS IN GIRLS’ SPORTS!” was flown above the sporting venue during the high school track-and-field championships.
Following Hernandez’s victories, protests erupted, eventually leading to a violent incident resulting in the arrest of one individual on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, as disclosed by Clovis police Sgt. Chris Hutchison to the Chronicle.
He said the person – understood to be an LGBTQ activist – allegedly used a Pride flag to smash a car window, leaving a person injured.
More fiery protests are expected to take off as Hernandez prepares to take on female rivals during the finals today.
Yesterday, furious high school parents berated the mother of the trans athlete after a dominant victory.
The video, which has now gone viral on TikTok, shows the parents hounding Hernandez’s mother for allowing the teen to compete.
One of the parents can be heard yelling at the mother: “What a coward of a woman you are allowing that.”
Prior to this recent success, Hernandez gained attention in the media for a previous incident where a fellow teenage competitor, whom Hernandez had defeated in a different competition, delayed celebrating her own victory until Hernandez had stepped down from the podium.
In the TikTok, the parent can also be heard shouting: “Your mental illness is on your son, coward.”
But more than half of the US states have implemented bans on trans youth athletes participating since 2020.
In an Instagram post, Hernandez’s mother said: “It takes immense bravery to show up, compete, and be visible in a world that often questions your very right to exist, let alone to participate.”
Hernandez’s case was thrust into national attention after Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California over the trans athlete’s sporting participation.
Hernandez’s successes prompted the California Interscholastic Federation to change its rules to allow “biological female” student athletes who would have made the qualifying mark without a trans contestant in the race to compete in the finals.
A spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office called the proposed pilot “reasonable”.
California state law allows the participation of trans women and girls in women’s sports.
Trump posted on Truth Social: “Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.”
His message refers to an Executive Order from February titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”.
In an interview with Capital & Main, Hernandez, from Jurupa Valley, California, said: “There’s nothing I can do about people’s actions, just focus on my own.
“I’m still a child. You’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person.”
The trans pupil faced heckling and protesters in the crowd at a track meet earlier this month and was accompanied by campus security and Sheriff’s Department deputies, CNN has reported.
