Runner slams high school and pleads for trans athlete to be removed

A female cross country runner at a California high school issued an impassioned plea to the school board this week amid ongoing controversy surrounding a trans athlete on her team. 

A transgender runner at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, was placed on the school's team, displacing one girl from her spot, despite reportedly failing to consistently attending practices or met key varsity eligibility requirements. 

In response, her teammates wore t-shirts featuring the slogan, 'Save Girls Sports,' which were likened to a swastika by school officials, according to Fox News. 

The athletic department's officials allegedly forced the girls to remove the t-shirts, claiming that they created a 'hostile' environment and likened them to wearing the insignia of the German Nazi Party in front of Jewish students. 

Now, Kylie Morrow, a 16-year-old student on the cross country team, has addressed the controversy at a Riverside Unified School District board meeting. 

Speaking Thursday, Morrow slammed her school and the notion that trans athletes should be allowed to compete in women's sports, opening up on how the situation has affected her and her teammates. 

'I'm constantly affected by the actions taken place this season, and I have been around the females, and just my team in general, who have felt almost silenced to speak out about it, because the whole LGBTQ is shoved down our throats!' Morrow said.

'We live in a society where it's almost impossible to speak out on it without facing repercussions.' 

Morrow also revealed that she had personally approached the school's athletic director to defend her teammates over the comparisons of their t-shirt protests to swastikas. 

'It feels as though that my school and the school district is choosing to support one person instead of the whole team,' Morrow said. 

'To see the athletic director turn around and tell my teammates that their shirts that say, 'Save girl's sports' be compared to a swastika, that is not okay. These girls feel silenced, they felt silenced, and when they finally did something to speak out against it . . . they were completely stabbed in the back.' 

Morrow added that she felt 'unsafe' in a situation where she was forced to share a locker room with a biological male.

'It is not okay that I have to be in position, and I have to see a male in booty shorts, and having to see that around me, as a 16-year-old girl I don't see that as a safe environment,' Morrow said. 

'Going into a locker room and seeing males in there, I don't find that safe, I don't find going to the bathroom safe when there's guys in there. It's not okay. I'm a 16-year-old girl!' 

Two of Morrow's teammates, identified as Kaitlyn and Taylor, filed a lawsuit against Martin Luther King High School after the school's alleged complaints over their t-shirts. 

'My initial reaction was like, I was really surprised, because it was like, 'Why is this happening to me?' Taylor told Fox News. 'There's a transgender student on the team. Why am I getting displaced when 'I've worked so hard and gone to all of the practices, and this student has only attended a few of the practices.' 

Meanwhile, both girls were left shocked by the school's comparisons of their t-shirts to swastikas. 

'It was definitely hard to hear because we're by no means trying to be hateful,' Kaitlyn said. 'We're just wearing a shirt that expresses what we believe in trying to raise awareness to a situation.'

The controversy surrounding trans participation in women's sports embroiled another California high school earlier this week. 

Stone Ridge Christian, a central-California high school, made headlines when it forfeited an upcoming girls volleyball playoff match in protest of a transgender player on opposing San Francisco Waldorf this week. 

The forfeiture also comes amid the ongoing controversy surrounding San Jose State's women's team, which has seen a string of opponents forfeit matches to protest the Spartans' Blaire Fleming, a star player who is reportedly transgender.