One of the Oregon girls who protested the presence of a transgender athlete last weekend claims that a track and field official ordered her and her partner in protest to “get out of the photo” after they stepped off the podium.
Reese Eckard of Sherwood High School and Alexa Anderson of Tigard High School stepped down from their positions on the podium in protest of the trans competitor from Ida B. Wells High School.
After the girls stepped off the podium, an official can be seen moving towards them and gesturing for them to leave.
"We did it because someone has to say this isn't right."
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 1, 2025
Girls' track and field athletes Alexa Anderson and Reese Eckhard promptly hop off the medal podium after an event when a trans athlete stands next to them. The girls, who finished in third and fourth place, beat the trans… pic.twitter.com/GOzuYI87OX
Watch this.
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) May 31, 2025
Two female athletes in Oregon refused to stand on the podium because a boy was awarded a place.
Girls have had enough.
pic.twitter.com/MhCgZ2zLou
“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,'” Anderson said on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle Monday night.
“They asked us to move away from the medal stand, so when they took the photos, we weren’t even in it at all.”
Eckard finished fourth in the high jump, and Anderson finished third; both female athletes defeated the trans athlete who tied for fifth.
Anderson added that she had never competed against a trans athlete before the state championships last weekend, but has always opposed the inclusion of males in girls’ and women’s sports.
“This is the first public stand that I have taken in this issue, but I have privately supported all the girls that have done with positive messages, commenting on posts, just supporting them and letting them know I’m behind them in any way,” Anderson explained.
Anderson also lamented the unfair position female athletes find themselves in when forced to compete against males with natural athletic advantages.
“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,” Anderson said.
Oregon will likely face an investigation for its continued defiance of President Trump’s efforts to combat the spread of trans athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a nonpartisan research institute, has filed a Title IX complaint with the Department of Education against Oregon’s policy of allowing males to compete in female sports.
