Two California cross country runners are fighting back after alleging that their school allowed a transgender athlete to take the spot of a biological female on the team. Rylee Morrow, who attends Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, CA, which is part of the Riverside Unified School District, spoke in defense of two of her teammates, Taylor and Kaitlyn, who have filed a lawsuit against the district alleging violations of their Title IX protections and First Amendment rights. Morrow shared the distractions and challenges she and her female teammates faced in having a biological male on the team. “It is not OK that I have to be in a position where I’m going to practice and have to see a male in booty shorts and having to see that around me,” she said. “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! We live in a society where it’s almost impossible to speak out on it without facing repercussions,” she added.

According to a lawsuit filed by Taylor and Kaitlyn, the district allegedly favored the transgender athlete over Taylor, causing her to lose her spot on the team despite the transgender athlete rarely attending practices. “This student did not meet any of the varsity top seven eligibility requirements. Taylor blew those eligibility requirements out of the park. The one qualifying factor that the athletic director considered when replacing Taylor was the students’ time. He is a biological male and, of course, he did run faster than my client, so we brought this Title IX cause of action against the School District,” stated Julianne Fleischer, Legal Counsel at Advocates for Faith & Freedom, which is representing the girls.

The suit also accuses the school of violating the girls’ First Amendment rights after they were told to cover up shirts with the expression “Save Girls Sports.” “They wore it [the shirts] to their practice, and the athletic director told them that they needed to hide their shirt or change their shirts because that message, ‘Save Girls Sports,’ creates a hostile environment,” stated Fleischer. The lawsuit also alleges that school officials compared the shirts to wearing swastikas. A spokesperson for the school stated it is simply following California law. “It is important to remember RUSD is bound to follow California law which requires that students be ‘permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records’…” the spokesperson said in a statement. Morrow states she will continue to support not only her teammates, but female athletes throughout the world. “Having a male on our team proposes genetic advantages for that student. But I’m not trying to use this platform to just advocate for my team. I’m choosing to advocate for girls and women across the globe.”