Camas Girls Protest Boy’s Participation in Girls’ Race
Teen girls walk off course to protest a boy’s participation in girls’ races, sparking national debate.
5 min read
On October 13, 13 girls from Camas High School’s cross-country team made a bold and controversial decision. Rather than compete in a dual meet against another school, they walked off the starting line, refusing to pretend that a boy on their team was one of them. The girls, arms linked, covered the first 50 meters before stepping off the course and forfeiting the race. After exiting, they hugged each other and cried, a moment that symbolized their quiet but powerful stand for reality.
The incident sparked a nationwide debate about gender identity, fairness, and the role of adults in protecting young girls. The girls had to know the risks of their decision: they were thrust into the spotlight on one of the most contentious issues of our time. They were taking a stand in defense of reality, which would inevitably bring vilification on the most public stage.
The boy in question, Logan Mihailoff, had joined the girls’ team a few weeks prior. By September 26, he had already placed second out of 195 in a girls’ race. Days later, he won a girls’ varsity dual. On October 10, he set a personal best time of 18:36 at the Nike Hole in the Wall XC Invitational, placing in the top third of an elite women’s field. On the day the girls walked off the course in protest, he finished second.
No amount of “extra training” could explain how a mid- to lower-pack boy became a top-of-the-pack girl in a matter of weeks. Only male puberty explained it. This was not just about a race or sports. It was about the broader implications of allowing a boy to compete in girls’ events. The girls were being asked to give up their privacy and fairness on the course, and the adults in charge were treating the boy’s feelings as more important than the girls’ rights.
Now, girls are leaving the team, and others are forfeiting races to make it clear that they won’t pretend he’s a girl. The author of the piece, a former elite gymnast, expressed frustration over the lack of action from adults. She recalled her own experiences with abuse in the sport and how adults failed to protect her and other athletes. She emphasized that fear of being called a bigot is not a parenting strategy and is, in fact, pathetic.
The parents of the Camas girls who walked have stood with them, but the rest of the country is watching teenage girls do the work adults refuse to do. Whether it is out of cowardice or complacency, the situation is unacceptable. The author was an elite gymnast and was raised in a culture of coaching abuse. Parents, governing body officials, judges, and gym employees looked the other way while coaches physically and emotionally abused athletes in plain sight.
When the author was heading to Russia for a major international competition in 1986, her own coaches told her to stay away from a national team coach who was an abuser. The implication was that the coach was great, and the author should not speak out. She was the first U.S. National Team gymnast to blow the whistle on rampant abuse in her 2008 book, “Chalked Up.” She wrote it because she didn’t want another child to go through what she had gone through.
The author is enraged by the cowardice of adults who refuse to stand up for young girls. She believes that the Camas girls throwing themselves into the spotlight, despite the harassment and bullying they will face, is a testament to their courage. These girls know the cost coming their way—friends who distance themselves or go silent, name-calling, and outright threats. And they did it anyway. They refused to pretend that the boy is a girl because the truth matters.
The author questions how parents can watch their sons take podium spots from girls and feel any sense of pride. They are teaching their sons that the truth about their body is a choice, that female categories exist for their use, and that other people’s daughters exist to validate them. This is not kindness; it is disgraceful parenting.
Adults created this situation. Sport governing bodies and school administrators enforce the rules that let a boy switch categories mid-season and then stand atop the podium as if he did something special. Teachers and coaches tell the girls to be kind and inclusive while the boy takes their spots and their space. The girls in Camas refused, and the rest of us can either keep letting teenagers carry this burden alone or say what is true: boys do not belong in girls’ sports or girls’ private spaces. And boys can never become girls.
Washington voters will have a chance to protect girls’ sports on November 3 to draw that line with Initiative 638. Colorado voters will have the same opportunity. The author is calling on parents across the country to take a stand and not let their silence tell their daughters that their opportunities rank below boys’ feelings. The people still defending this ideology after Camas have to be willfully blind. They watched a boy declare himself a girl and, within weeks, steal places from girls who trained all season.
What is happening here is a choice to prioritize ideology and a young man’s feelings over the rights of girls. Adults created this, and sport governing bodies and school administrators enforce the rules that let a boy switch categories mid-season and then stand atop the podium as if he did something special. Teachers and coaches tell the girls to be kind and inclusive while the boy takes their spots and their space.
Source: Daily Wire
