'She did it!': Mom of trans teen celebrates championship amid protests

Despite negative headlines across far-right media, a 17-year-old California girl walked away a state champion, with two gold medals around her neck.

Just days after graduating high school in Jarupa out transgender teen AB Hernandez won the girls' high jump and triple jump in the CIF track and field state championships. Saturday’s wins at the Clovis meet marked her second consecutive year placing first in those events, making her a four-time state champion.

Hernandez’s achievements in track and field and her participation in girls' volleyball have drawn criticism and outrage from opponents of transgender athletes, including President Donald Trump, The Advocate has reported.

Headlines in right-wing publications included, "Ultimate karma for trans athlete AB Hernandez," "Inside the last dance of AB Hernandez," and "LGBTQ press conference at track meet involving trans athlete descends into chaos, police summoned”

“I feel like I’m always going to be in the public eye,” Hernandez said in a post-meet interview with the Los Angeles Times. “It’s never going to go away, and that’s weird. But maybe someday it’ll be for something else.”

She also placed third in the long jump on Saturday, medaling in the event for her second straight year. In fact, Hernandez was the only high jumper in this year's competition to clear 5 feet, 10 inches, while her triple jump score of 48 feet, 8 3/4 inches was more than an inch ahead of the second-place finisher.

“Back to back feels awesome,” Hernandez told the Los Angeles Times. “I couldn’t get the long jump, but that’s okay.”

She jumped 20 feet, 2 1/4 inches on Saturday, behind first-place finisher Ellie McCuskey-Hay of St. Ignatius (20-3½) and Gianna Gonzalez of Moorpark (20-3½).

When it was time to stand on the podium and receive her medals, Hernandez was joined all three times by the same three cisgender girls who came close but did not match her achievement. Hernandez stood alongside St. Mary’s Berkeley jumper Corrine Jones, who reached 19-9 ½.

She shared the triple-jump first-place podium spot with Los Altos’ Daniela Hughes (41-1) and the high jump first-place podium spot with Monta Vista’s Leilani Laruelle (5-8).

That’s because of a CIF policy that guarantees cisgender competitors a win even when they are beaten by any transgender student-athlete, as The Advocate has reported. The federation policy allows trans girls to compete according to California law, and has drawn criticism from inclusion opponents, which included Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who held a news conference outside Veterans Memorial Stadium on Friday. California's primary elections to determine who will be on the ballot for governor are tomorrow.

"Tom Steyer has taken a wildly extreme position on this issue that is totally out of touch with most California families and young people," Hilton told Fox News. Hilton stood before signs reading, “Hey, CIF: Girls’ Sports Girls Only." His Republican opponent, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, also issued a statement against trans female athletes being allowed to compete with cisgender girls.

Steyer, a billionaire running for office, released a video Friday of a conversation he had with Hernandez.

"I'm so proud of you for what you're doing," Steyer told Hernandez in the video. "So proud of you for succeeding. So proud of you for competing. That's really the point. And I'm going to hope like heck that you don't just make state, but you do really well there."

In the video, Steyer told her: "The role of the governor is to protect Californians, and to stand between them and danger. That's a role I take very, very seriously, particularly when it comes to trans youth."

Steyer was also asked about the issue recently on the "I've Had It" podcast.

"When you understand the vulnerability, the stress, the danger of being a trans kid, and you understand almost half of them try to commit suicide, then you think, We're gonna punish those kids, we're gonna cut them off from team sports?" Steyer said. "No, we're not."

Also on Friday, Fox News reported that Hernandez's mother, Nereyda Hernandez, joined the Pride of the Pier and Rainbow Families action at a news conference outside the stadium to speak about the support her daughter has received from both fellow student-athletes and strangers.

“I’m always going to think about how hard she tried to be here,” she said. “She didn’t quit. Despite all the pressure, you can’t change my kid.”

Fox News reported that opponents engaged supporters of Hernandez at the end of their news conference in a heated shouting match, which ended when officers from the Clovis police department came over to observe the confrontation.

The Los Angeles Times was with Hernandez as she embraced her mother following her high jump and triple jump, away from the crowd, the cameras, and the protests.

“She did it,” Nereyda told the newspaper. “With everything else, it didn’t matter; she did it.”

Hernandez told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that she blocks out the uproar over her participation, including the presence of protesters. "Track is a very singular sport; it teaches you to rely on yourself," Hernandez said. "Once you're on the track, you just stay focused on the track."

"I just laughed," she said of the protesters. "I don’t care."

Hernandez said her plans for after the meet were to go to Disneyland.

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