Oregon track star Alexa Anderson has revealed she was ordered away from the high jump podium by angry officials after she protested the inclusion of a trans athlete.
Anderson and fellow competitor Reese Eckard were filmed refusing to step onto the podium during the medal ceremony, in an apparent protest of a fifth-place finisher who is reportedly transgender.
Rather than taking their spots on the podium, footage obtained by Fox News showed the girls turning their backs to the crowd before being ushered away from the ceremony by an official.
Now, Anderson has revealed that the official was apparently deeply unimpressed by the gesture.
She told Fox: ‘We stepped off the podium in protest and, as you can see, the official kind of told us “hey, go over there, if you’re not going to participate, get out of the photos”.
‘They asked us to move away from the medal stand, so when they took the photos, we weren’t even in it at all.’
Reese Eckard of Sherwood High School and Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School have been praised as heroes on social media after abandoning the medal ceremony in Eugene
Anderson (left) opened up about her protest in an interview with Fox News this week
Anderson had finished third in the competition while fellow protestor Eckard had just clinched fourth place.
Anderson continued: ‘It’s unfair because biological males and biological females compete at such different levels that letting a biological male into our competition is taking up space and opportunities from all these hardworking women.
‘The girl in ninth who should have came in eighth and had that podium spot taken away from her, as well as many others.’
She added: ‘This was my first time competing against a transgender individual and the first public stand I have taken in this issue.
‘But I have privately supported all the other girls who have done the same.’
Anderson insisted at the time, in a separate interview with Fox, that she was not trying to stir hatred towards the trans community.
‘We didn’t refuse to stand on the podium out of hate,’ she said. ‘We did it because someone has to say this isn’t right.
‘In order to protect the integrity and fairness of girls sports we must stand up for what is right.’
Daily Mail has reached out to the Oregon School Activities Association for comment on the controversy.
Oregon is one of several states challenging President Donald Trump’s ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports’ executive order, which threatens to deny federal funding to rogue governments.
The American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association have both stated that gender is a spectrum and not a binary structure, as the White House argued in its January 20 executive order ‘defending women from gender ideology.’
