Taylor Starling and Kaitlyn Slavin – Students athlete at Martin Luther King secondary school in Riverside, California – held a live press conference on X on Friday, the director of awareness of the California Sophia Lorey family council. The two girls shared their prospects on a recent national controversy which besieged their community caused by a trans athlete who participates in the female cross-country team.
“It was confusing, it never happened to me, as if I didn’t even think it was going to happen to me,” said Starling. “It was just like, surprising, that there was going to be a guy running with the girls.”
Slavin, who is only a first -year student, said that the experience of having their first year of high school implies the situation is “a little crazy”.
“Just in high school, having to compete with men when you shouldn’t be something that shocked me right away,” said Slavin.
Starling lost his university place for the benefit of a trans athlete who was transferred to school last year, and when they wore shirts that read “Save Girls Sports” to protest, they allege that school administrators compared the shirts with swastikas. The two girls and their families are now engaged in a trial against the Unified School District of Riverside (RUSD) for these allegations.
In response, hundreds of their comrades and hundreds of other residents of the community began to wear the shirts in protest. The shirts have become a local, then national symbol for the protection of female athletes against male biological inclusion in their sports and changing rooms.
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The controversy and media coverage of the situation that followed pushed the two adolescent girls, their families and the whole city under the projectors of the national debate on trans inclusion in female sports, which has become a hot political problem during the electoral year of 2024.
And for Starling, Slavin and their classmates, he came with a wave of attention that they have never known, both negative and positive.
“I had tons of people who contacted me and say to me” thank you very much for what you do and defend these women “, said Starling. “For my friends, many of my friends were checked by the shoulders because they wore the shirts and many of them were cursed and called very bad names, and they published certain things on the internet calling horrible people of names to wear these shirts. ”
Slavin, who says that she found a relief in sports stress throughout her life, has no longer found sports stress because of the situation this year.
“It is frightening that it is not something that can always be a place related to stress if we want it all to happen,” said Slavin. “It affects you mentally and emotionally … It is so difficult to do everything.”
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Supporters of transgender athletes hold left panels as Tori Hitchcock, Center, young women for America, and Salomay McCullough, on the right, the two former female athletes, show their “Save Girls Sports” shirts as a crowd overflowing converges outside the Riverside Unified Unified Unified Unified of the School District Thursday evening to debate the rights of transgender athletes to participate in high school sports Thursday, December 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Starling says that the Trans athlete used girls’ toilets at school, however, they have not seen much the athlete in the locker room due to frequently missing practices.
The two girls, and several parents who spoke to PK Press Club Digital, allege that the Trans athlete was authorized to compete on the university despite the missing practice each week.
Starling’s father Ryan Starling previously told PK Press Club Digital that when his daughter and other girls had approached the administrators on this subject, they were told that “the transgender people have more rights than the shelves”. The RUSD previously provided a declaration to PK Press Club Digital Insisting on the fact that its management of the situation was in accordance with the law of the State of California.
The two girls then sparked a viral trend in their communities when they presented themselves at school in November with the “Save Girls Sports” shirts.
And despite being scolded by school administrators for this and having to put a legal action, more and more students began to present themselves each week by wearing the shirts, because the school had to modify his dress code and start placing the students in detention to have worn them. This did not prevent the shirts from spreading and growing. It has become a weekly ritual for hundreds of students every Wednesday to present the support of girls’ shirts and their messages, and many of them have created viral publications on social networks on it.
In early December, school administrators give up On their efforts to discipline students for having worn the shirts. Sources have told PK Press Club Digital that more than 400 students had shown shirts at the same time, and students from other schools in the district began to wear them in class.
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Students from Martin Luther King secondary school in Riverside, California, wear t-shirts that read “Save Girls’ Sports” to protest a trans athlete in the Cross-Country team. (Thanks to Sophia Lorey)
But Slavin, Starling his lawyer Julianne Fleischer, said that the school administrators had always told the two daughters that they were not allowed to wear the shirts at the press conference on Friday. However, they also said that more than 400 students from their school continued to show up for shirts every Wednesday.
The situation resulted in a heated and conflicting event on December 19, when the RUSD held a meeting of the School Board to resolve the problem. Before the meeting, outside the district office, there have been competing demonstrations between activists and parents carrying the “Save Girls Sports” shirts and LGBTQ activists.
The sources, including Ryan Starling, have told PK Press Club Digital that the LGBTQ activists of the event harass the demonstrators “Save Girls Sports” and even disturbed a prayer group for women during a prayer circle before the meeting.
“The members of the pro-LGBTQ groups began to heckle and harass people online who spoke in opposition to their values. Some of these adult demonstrators even came to young girls who were going to speak and cry out to them, the president From the Inland Empire section of Young Women for America (YWA), Tori Hitchcock, told PK Press Club Digital.
An anonymous parent told PK Press Club Digital about the fact that a child was bombed with vulgar insults by pro-Trans-Trans-Trans demonstrators after the meeting.
The supporter of transgender athletes Kyle Harp, on the left, of Riverside holds the flag of the progress of pride as supporters of “Save Girls Sports” Lori Lopez and his father Pete Pickering, both of Riverside, listen to the debate while ‘They join the overflowing crowd converging outside the Riverside Unified School Unified School Riverside Unified School Unified School District Meeting Thursday evening to debate the rights of transgender athletes to participate in high school sports on Thursday, December 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“My 16 -year -old son and a few others stood outside after talking when a group of the LGBTQ community intentionally worked in front of them, pointing each of them saying:” Fu fu fu “,” said the Anonymous parent.
Then, inside the meeting, the parents and opposing activists delivered passionate speeches on their reflections on the situation, with several speakers shouting in hysterical tones. The meeting lasted nearly five hours and included testimonies between the people who opposed the inclusion trans into the sports of the girls and those who supported it.
Many pro-Trans speeches have encountered acute cheers and the derogation of LGBTQ pride flags by those present.
The RUSD previously provided a declaration to PK Press Club Digital Insisting on the fact that its management of the situation was in accordance with the law of the State of California.
“Although these rules were not created by RUSD, the district is committed to complying with the regulations of the law and the CIF. Physical education and athletics.
The RUSD was also blamed for its management of the situation on the officials of Washington DC, and the capital of the State of California, Sacramento. They made this statement in early December, before President Donald Trump returned to the post.
The supporters of “Save Girls Sports” Skylar Crawford, on the left, and Jadeynn Gallardo, both from Martin Luther King secondary school, and Tori Hitchcock, on the right, young women for America, pray among the overflowing crowd converging Outside the meeting of the unified school district of Riverside Thursday evening Thursday evening debating the rights of transgender athletes to participate in high school sports Thursday, December 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“As these questions take place in our courts and in the media, the opposition and demonstrations should be directed against people able to allocate these laws and policies (including those responsible for Washington DC and Sacramento),” said their declaration.
Trump is committed to banning trans athletes from participating in the sports of girls and women, because a federal bill entitled The Protection of Women and Girls In Sports Act is currently progressing in the congress. He has already gone to the House of Representatives.
Until this bill is potentially signed, Slavin and Starling ask their supporters to “pray” for them.
