Washington High School Girls Walk Off a Cross-Country Course to Protest a Transgender Teammate

When the gun went off for the girls’ race at Tuesday’s Camas and Battle Ground dual meet in southwest Washington, only part of the Camas team ran. About a dozen of its runners walked roughly 50 meters and then left the course, forfeiting the race to protest a transgender teammate who had been racing in the boys’ category until early September, The Columbian first reported.

That was half of the 24 girls on the Camas roster, according to KUOW. Their teammate placed 76th in a boys’ junior varsity race on Sept. 5 and was running in girls’ races by Sept. 15. Since then she has won a dual meet and placed in the top two in others, though she finished well back in the elite race at a big Portland-area invitational on Oct. 10, according to results compiled by the Seattle Times. Marathon Handbook is not naming her because she is a minor, as the Times and KUOW have also chosen not to. Her family and her coach did not respond to either outlet.

Kevin and Sarah Burns, whose daughter Holly was among the runners who walked off, said they backed her decision. “I don’t see how it’s OK to discriminate against my daughter and the daughters of everyone else that is trying to fairly compete,” Kevin Burns told OutKick. “Some of these girls work really hard to compete,” the couple said, adding that they might return to a later meet with a more organized protest.

The switch was within the rules of the WIAA, Washington’s governing body for school sports, which has let students compete according to their gender identity since the 2008-09 school year. It told the Times its policy does not bar a switch during the season, that nobody has filed an eligibility challenge, and that it knows of no more than about 10 transgender athletes competing statewide in any year. The district has pointed to RCW 28A.642, the state law against gender identity discrimination in public schools. Superintendent John Anzalone told OutKick the protesters would face no consequences. “As long as the policy stands, we’re going to follow the policy,” he said. Of the girls caught up in it, he said: “They’re still children.”

Tuesday’s was the second walkout of the season, after two Skyview High School runners stepped off the course at a meet against Camas on Sept. 15. A Skyview parent who held a sign and chanted at that meet has since been served a criminal trespass notice by the Camas district, which says it acted over his conduct, not his views.

Each team can start only seven varsity runners at the Greater St. Helens League district championships on Oct. 21, and The Columbian has reported that the meet is being moved to a new site over security concerns. The state championships follow on Nov. 7.

Four days before that, Washington voters decide on Initiative 638. Backed by the conservative group Let’s Go Washington, which turned in about 445,000 signatures in January, it would keep students it classifies as biologically male out of girls’ school sports from kindergarten through 12th grade, and require a medical provider to verify an athlete’s sex by reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or testosterone levels. Even if it passes, it would not apply until 30 days after the vote, too late for this season’s state meet. An unreleased August poll by the campaign itself put support at 56 percent, KUOW reported.

World Athletics has required a one-time SRY gene test for its female category since Sept. 1, 2025, and the IOC will bar transgender women from women’s events starting at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that states may ban transgender girls from girls’ teams, but it did not require them to, so Washington’s rules stand unless they are changed. Below the elite level the rules are a patchwork: California handed duplicate golds to female runners-up under a shared-podium rule at its high school track finals this spring, and a campaign is now pushing parkrun to restrict its female category.

John Gallagher, a former Bellevue high school cross-country coach who supports the No Hate in Washington State campaign against I-638, told KUOW that adults were steering the students, and that he had coached transgender runners without ever seeing a walkout. “This is one child,” he said. Amy Sousa, the activist who posted the video of Tuesday’s race, is organizing a rally for Oct. 21, the day of the district meet.