AB Hernandez swept three events at the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section Track and Field Masters last Saturday in Ventura County. High jump, long jump, triple jump. All gold. All girls’ categories. All biological male performance against female athletes who never stood a chance.
This isn’t commentary. It’s math. Hernandez cleared 5 feet 8 inches in the high jump while the closest female competitor managed 5 feet 6 inches. In the long jump, the margin was over a foot. The triple jump? More than a foot again. These aren’t razor-thin victories decided by hundredths of a second or millimeters that make you hold your breath. These are decisive, predictable outcomes rooted in basic biology that everyone understands but half the country pretends to forget.
Here’s where it gets truly Orwellian. California’s solution to the obvious unfairness wasn’t to protect female athletes. It was to hand out participation trophies dressed up as gold medals. Under CIF rules, the girls who finished second behind Hernandez also received gold medals and stood on a podium built for four instead of three. Imagine training your entire high school career, pushing your body to its limits, only to be told you’re getting a gold medal for losing. The condescension is breathtaking.
This policy exists because state officials know exactly what’s happening. They see the problem. They just lack the courage to fix it. So instead they create this bizarre theater where everyone gets a gold medal and we all pretend biological reality doesn’t exist. It’s the kind of solution that makes everyone feel worse, especially the girls who know they’re receiving pity medals.
Hernandez’s mother actually criticized the dual gold medal policy, which tells you something about how twisted this situation has become. Even she recognizes the absurdity, though perhaps for different reasons than the female athletes watching their dreams get redistributed in the name of inclusion.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova and Olympic swimmer Nancy Hogshead didn’t mince words earlier this month. They called out Governor Gavin Newsom directly for failing to protect girls in California. When a nine-time Wimbledon champion and an Olympic gold medalist are telling you there’s a problem with women’s sports, maybe you should listen. These aren’t culture warriors looking for a fight. They’re women who spent their lives competing at the highest levels, who understand what fair competition actually means.
The federal government noticed too. Last July, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California state agencies for alleged Title IX violations. That’s the 1972 federal law designed specifically to prevent sex-based discrimination in educational programs. The irony is rich enough to choke on. A law created to give women equal opportunities in sports is now being used to challenge policies that let biological males dominate girls’ competitions.
This weekend’s meet was a regional qualifier for the state championship later this month. Under current rules, both Hernandez and the second-place female finisher in each event advance automatically. Last year at the state championship, Hernandez took gold in high jump and triple jump, plus silver in long jump. The pattern repeats because the underlying biology doesn’t change no matter how many policies you write.
You know what gets lost in all this? The girls who trained just as hard, who dedicated just as many hours, who wanted it just as badly. They’re standing on that four-person podium holding gold medals that mean something different now. Everyone in the stadium knows it. Everyone watching knows it. The only people pretending otherwise are the administrators and politicians who created this mess.
We used to understand that fairness in sports required categories. Weight classes in wrestling and boxing exist for a reason. Age divisions in youth sports exist for a reason. Men’s and women’s competitions exist for a reason. None of this was controversial until about five minutes ago in historical terms.
Individual liberty matters. It’s a cornerstone principle. But liberty doesn’t mean rewriting biology or forcing young women to compete on terms that guarantee their failure. Real compassion would find solutions that don’t sacrifice one group’s opportunities for another’s validation. Real leadership would acknowledge hard truths instead of hiding behind participation trophies.
The girls standing next to Hernandez on that podium deserve better. They deserve competitions where effort and talent determine outcomes, not chromosomes and testosterone. They deserve honest recognition, not consolation prizes wrapped in politically correct ribbon. Most of all, they deserve adults willing to protect their rights even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it costs political points, even when the mob comes calling.
California won’t give them that. Not this year, probably not next year either. So the charade continues, the medals get handed out, and everyone pretends this is progress.
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