A female Oregon high school track and field athlete who protested on the victory podium after competing against a transgender individual told Newsmax on Wednesday she’s frustrated seeing biological males taking spots away from women in sporting events.
Alexa Anderson, a senior at Tigard High School in suburban Portland, Oregon, finished third in the high jump at the state championships Saturday, two spots ahead of Lia Rose, a transgender athlete from Ida B. Wells High School in Portland who competed against males in 2023 and 2024.
When the top-eight finishers took to the podium, Anderson and fourth-place finisher Reese Eckard, a senior from Sherwood High School in suburban Portland, stepped down and turned their backs in protest as the other athletes received medals. Anderson and Eckard reportedly were asked by an official to step away from the podium so photos could be taken.
“Going into the meet, I had prior knowledge that there was going to be a transgender athlete competing amongst us, and I knew that I didn’t want to just act like this was normal to me and this was OK with me,” Anderson told “Wake Up America.” “Because if we continue to normalize this, I’m worried that national titles and national records are going to be taken by biological men and taken from hard-working women.
“So, I decided I’m going to step off the podium and say, I don’t think this is OK. I don’t think this was a fair competition.”
The America First Policy Institute on May 27 filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Department of Education, calling for an investigation into Oregon’s state education and athletic policies that allow biological males to compete in female-only sports. The complaint alleged such policies violate Title IX protections for female student-athletes, as well as an executive order by President Donald Trump that asserted the federal government’s commitment to ensuring fair competition in girls’ and women’s sports.
“The law that was supposed to protect our girls, Title IX, is being weaponized against them,” Jessica Hart Steinmann, AFPI’s executive general counsel and vice chair of the Center for Litigation, said while appearing with Anderson on “Wake Up America.” “And on top of this, there are First Amendment violations. Alexa and Reese stepped down from that podium in peaceful protest, and that is a clear First Amendment violation when they were sidelined by that official.”
The protest by Anderson and Eckard came on the heels of biological males winning state girl’s track and field titles in Washington and California, as well as a biological male leading a Minnesota high school softball team to a state championship.
“The biological male [who] competed against us would not have made it to the state track and field meet as a man,” Anderson said. “I’m just frustrated for all the girls that are having spots taken away from them because we’ve all been out here, we’ve all worked so hard and to have a biological male take away those spots just feels really unfair.”
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