Are there really so few boys in girls' sports?

There are so few. Which I hear all the time in defense of the 35-year-olds playing in the U14 league. But in this case, I’m going to try to substantiate the data on boys’ participating in girls’ sports, an elusive data set, to be sure. There are a lot of factors that limit this data set, some parameters I set for myself, and some are imposed by external factors. Like being called a hateful right-wing bigot for suggesting girls’ sports should be for girls.

I’m going to search just the high school boys participating in girls’ sports, just in the month of May 2025 so far (so that’s just spring sports), just in the U.S. Oh, and just the instances in which some observer (parent, fan, maybe an actual reporter) knew the athlete was indeed male and just those willing to face the opprobrium of calling that out, and just those instances in which the observer videoed or posted or reported the incident. Oh, and on top of all those other caveats, these are just in cases in which the male athlete’s results were remarkable enough to garner attention (a truly shit male athlete still does not belong on a girls’ team but will probably be overlooked). One more—these are just instances of boys competing in girls’ sports in the few states that have decided to die on the hill of violating girls’ rights to their own sports and spaces. Prior to the executive orders, there would have been many more. Should be a short list, right?

Well, there’s AB Hernandez in California. Hernandez won one triple jump competition by an unbelievable eight feet. He’s ranked third in the U.S. in that event. He also competes in long jump and high jump but in this video says he doesn’t win those events all the time, proving that he’s not dominating girls’ sports. Also proving that Hernandez does not understand the concept of male advantage. Or female rights. Hernandez is also a top player on his school’s volleyball team during the winter.

Ada (formerly Aayden) Gallagher, in Oregon, the boy who won a girl’s state track championship and was runner-up in another event in 2024 was back in action this year, winning his signature 200 meter and 400 meter races early in the season. Gallagher raced only once in April, and has not raced in May which might indicate he’s injured. But probably does not indicate he’s figured out that he’s been violating girls’ rights as females for two years now.

This story about male high jumper Lia (Zachary) Rose winning a girls’ high jump competition by an astounding 8 inches is disqualified on a technicality—it happened in April, not May. Still, Rose is doing a heckuva lot better in the girls’ competition than he did two years ago in boys’, where he finished last in the JV high jump competition.

Veronica Garcia of Spokane, Washington ran a track meet on April 30 (so I’m fudging by a day) in which he placed first in the 200 meter, 400 meter, and 800 meter races. On May 7, he placed first in the 800 meter race and helped his school’s 4 x 400 meter relay to a first place finish. Garcia is a favorite to repeat his 2024 state championship at 400 meters this year.

Maine governor Janet Mills is suing the Trump administration essentially to allow Soren Stark-Chessa to continue his three-sport, two-year trampling of girls’ rights. On May 2, he placed first in a track meet in the 800 meter and 1600 meter races. There are only 8 lanes on most high school tracks and schools can usually only enter two athletes, sometimes only one, in the 800 and 1600 meter races, so Stark-Chessa has taken many girls’ spots on his own school’s track team, as well as those meant for girls from opposing schools. This past February, Stark-Chessa placed third in the girls’ nordic skiing state championship in a time of 16:52. The third place boys’ time on the same day was 14.:55, almost two minutes faster than Stark-Chessa’s. He would not have even qualified for the boys’ state championship competition. In the fall, he competed on the girls’ cross country team where he finished the season in third place at the Class C state championship meet. In cross country and nordic skiing, the varsity roster size is limited, sometimes to as few as 7 athletes. At every single race, Stark-Chessa not only took a spot on the varsity roster from a girl from his own school, but bumped girls from opposing schools down a spot in the results, often off the podium.

In Minnesota, “Marissa” (born Charles) Rothenberger has pitched several shutout games and led the Champlin Park girls’ softball team to a stellar 17-2 regular season record. The team has a good chance at a state championship. Rothenberger’s mother changed his birth certificate to female when he was only 9 years old, so it was easy for his parents to conceal his sex. Minnesota is one of the states where one can request a completely new birth certificate so it appears as if the sex shown was the sex observed at birth. Rothenberger, who also plays on an elite fastpitch team, has indicated he hopes to play in the NCAA. While NCAA policy says males are excluded from female sports, they determine sex by looking at a student’s (falsified, in this case) birth certificate, so he will be A-okay as far as the NCAA is concerned.

Although Pennsylvania changed their sports policy from inclusion by gender identity to sex in compliance with executive orders, the state’s high school sports association said that due to a judge’s decision, if male track athlete Luce Allen had qualified for the state championship meet, he would have been allowed to run in that meet on the girls’ team where he’s been competing since 2023. Though Allen has won some of his 200 meter races this season, he placed 12th and his time did not meet the qualifying standard, so he did not qualify for the state championship. Even though Allen is not “dominating,” spurring howls from male inclusion activists that this proves he has no advantage and that “trans girls” belong in girls’ sports, he takes a lane on the track that belongs to a girl. He is male, will always be male, and thus has no place on a team designed to exclude males. The girls’ team is meant only for girls. Very simple.

This is one of those instances that would have gone completely under the radar if not for some concerned person who posted a video to YouTube. It happened in Illinois, but I notice it’s a junior high track meet, thus officially DQed from my list.

That’s it. That’s what I got. Bear in mind, these data points happened over a three-week period in high school sports that are contested in the spring that managed to gain some sort of national attention, though none of them were covered by legacy national or even local mainstream media outlets. I had to search hard for these examples, and I know where to look. Most people do not.

Is it just a few? If no media write about the wholesale violation of the rights of ALL girls, which you’d think would be news, does this mean it’s not happening, or does it mean the media simply does not want to cover it? If it’s rarely, if ever, in the news, could this explain why people think “it’s not really happening?” If I found this many examples in a three-week span of poorly reported incidents, could there not actually be many more that are not reported, especially given the social pressure to look away, say nothing, and avoid being labeled a right-wing bigot? How many 35-year-olds in the U14s is an acceptable number? Some things to think about in the beautiful month of May.