A school agrees to play Jurupa Valley volleyball team with transgender player in lineup
- Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
A transgender high school athlete who won three medals in the state track and field championships last spring, sparking a raucous national debate over gender identity in youth sports, finds herself in an unwanted spotlight again after three schools chose to forfeit volleyball matches rather than play against her and Jurupa Valley High teammates.
The most recent school saying it would not take the court for its scheduled nonleague match with the Lady Jags was Orange Vista High in Perris, which told Fox News Digital that it would not show up for Friday’s match at Jurupa Valley. The event no longer appears on the Orange Vista school website or on the volleyball team’s schedule, although it was still listed on the Jurupa Valley calendar Wednesday morning.
None of the schools responded to emails and text messages asking why they chose to forfeit. However, media reports say the schools decided not to play in protest of AB Hernandez, a 17-year-old senior transgender athlete on the Jurupa Valley team.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old junior at Jurupa Valley High School, won multiple medals at California’s state track and field championships, after President Trump ordered officials to block her from competing.
Hernandez helped the Lady Jags to the Southern Section Division 5 volleyball playoffs last fall before winning both the high jump and triple jump and placing second in the long jump at the state track meet in the spring. Although Hernandez came out as trans in the eighth grade, she had largely competed anonymously in high school, finishing third in the triple jump in the 2024 state track meet, before being outed publicly by Jessica Tapia, a former Jurupa Valley teacher, who revealed the teenager‘s identity in a number of social media posts.
Last February, Sonja Shaw, school board president for the Chino Valley Unified School District, revealed Hernandez’s name and the school she attended on Instagram. Shaw and Tapia later showed up at a high school track meet to confront Hernandez, claiming it was unfair for an athlete identified as male at birth to compete against girls.
President Trump quickly joined the fray, threatening to withhold federal funding from California over Hernandez’s participation in the state track meet. By the time the Justice Department launched an investigation, the transformation had been completed: Hernandez had gone from talented high school athlete to a political symbol of the culture wars.
California law permits transgender females to take part in sports that align with their gender identity. Hernandez, a senior, has played volleyball and participated in track and field for the three years without incident.
The youngest of four sisters, Hernandez grew up in Jurupa Valley, a largely rural, largely Latino city of about 106,000 in Riverside County. Her single mother, Nereyda, took her to church every Sunday and counted on sports to keep her children out of trouble.
The Justice Department warned California school districts that they will face legal trouble if they don’t bar trans athletes from competition.
Nereyda Hernandez, AB’s mother, declined to discuss her daughter’s participation with the Jurupa Valley volleyball and track teams. Liana Manu, the school’s volleyball coach, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Cari Klein, who coaches the girls’ team at Marymount High and with the elite Sunshine Volleyball Club, has worked with transgender girls and is sympathetic to Hernandez’s situation.
“I would love to have a space for everyone to play,” she said. “That, I think, is really important.”
But she also believes athletes who were born male have a definite advantage when competing against cisgender females.
This 17-year-old transgender athlete has faced challenges on the track and in the national spotlight. We follow her through her tumultuous final semester of high school.
“No matter how you put it, there’s a big, big advantage,” she said. “The eye-hand coordination is so much better. And the strength and the jump.”
“Who voted on this rule?” she continued, referencing the 2013 law, signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, that allows students to take part in sports consistent with their gender identity. “A rule that gets decided for girls by some men who are not around and not playing the sport? There’s different factors for each sport, right?”
There is also the danger of injury. Three years ago a high school student in North Carolina sustained a serious head injury when she was struck in the face by a spiked ball from a transgender opponent, an incident widely cited by opponents of transgender athletes competing in girls sports.
With Friday’s games against Orange Vista the latest to be canceled by forfeit, the Lady Jags’ next scheduled nonleague match is Sept. 4 against Chaffey. And that one will go forward, promised Chaffey athletic director Chris Brown.
California sued the U.S. Justice Department Monday over its demand that local school districts ban transgender youth from competing in sports.
“We made a decision to play against Jurupa Valley in volleyball because it is an equitable match-up,” Brown wrote in an email. “Chaffey and Jurupa Valley play each other in several sports. We make decisions on the basis for what is best for our kids and school.
“A few years back we had COVID and kids couldn’t play at all for a while. It brings joy to my heart that we can have young people out there competing against each other, period.”
