School told girls ‘transgender people have more rights’ after trans runner stripped girl of college place, parent says
EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Starling, a high school runner at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, lost her spot on the varsity team earlier this season to a transgender transfer student.
Multiple parents of students Martin Luther King Jr. told Fox News Digital the school allowed the trans athlete to compete on the varsity cross country team despite missing practices for academic reasons. Those parents include Starling’s father, longtime firefighter Ryan Starling, and construction subcontractor Dan Slavin, father of Kaitlyn, another runner on the team.
“The fact that an athlete was able to compete while attending less than 25% of training is not fair. In what era, in what team, in what sport can you barely show up to training and still compete?” Dan Slavin told Fox News Digital. “It’s not fair, and it’s not fair to those who work hard every day all season.”
Both families are currently involved in a lawsuit against the Riverside Unified School District (RSD).
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Ryan Starling told Fox News Digital that losing his daughter’s college spot was emotionally upsetting for his entire family, as cross-country played a key role in her life. And then when his daughter and the other girls on the team confronted school administrators about it, he claims they were told that “transgender people have more rights than cisgender people.”
“It’s been said multiple times not only to Taylor, but to her sister,” Ryan Starling said, adding that Taylor is one of three triplets, all three of whom are active on college sports teams. “All of the administrators at Martin Luther King made this comment, and the Title IX coordinator for Riverside Unified School District stated ‘that as a cisgender girl they don’t have the same rights as a transgender girl’ to multiple girls, not just our daughter, but multiple girls on campus. ”
An RUSD spokesperson declined to provide an official comment on Ryan Starling’s claims in an interview with Fox News Digital.
RUSD previously issued a statement to Fox News Digital insisting it handled the situation in accordance with California state law.
“Although these policies were not created by RUSD, the District is committed to complying with CIF laws and regulations. California state law prohibits discrimination against students based on sex, gender identity, and gender expression, and specifically prohibits discrimination based on gender in physical education and athletics Protections We Provide to all students is not only in line with the law, but also with our fundamental values, which include fairness and well-being,” the press release states.
In California, the so-called law AB 1266 has been in effect since 2014, giving California students at the school and college level the right to “participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, regardless of to the gender listed in the student’s records.”
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California Code of Regulations Section 4910(k) defines gender as: “A person’s actual sex or assumed gender and includes a person’s perceived identity, appearance, or behavior, regardless of whether that identity, appearance, or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with a person’s gender at birth.”
California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Bylaw 300.D. reflects the Education Code, which states: “All students should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner consistent with their gender identity, regardless of the gender listed on their student record.”
The RUSD also blamed officials in Washington DC and California’s capital, Sacramento, for their handling of the situation.
“As these things play out in our courts and media, opposition and protests should be directed at those who can influence these laws and policies (including officials in Washington DC and Sacramento),” their statement read.
But Starling, Slavin, other students and their families were prepared to do much more than simply send a letter to their local legislators.
Taylor and Kaitlyn ignited a viral trend in their communities when they walked out to school in November wearing “Save Girls Sports” t-shirts. Martin Luther King administrators allegedly clashed with the girls over the shirts, comparing them to swastikas, according to their lawsuit against the district.
Then every week more and more students started showing up wearing the shirts, as the school had to change the dress code and start putting students in detention for wearing them. This did not prevent the expansion and growth of the shirts. It has become a weekly ritual for hundreds of students every Wednesday to show up wearing t-shirts in support of the girls and share their messages, many of them creating viral posts on social media.
At the beginning of December, the school administrators gave up on their efforts to discipline students for wearing T-shirts. Sources told Fox News Digital that more than 400 students were wearing the shirts at once, and students at other schools in the district began wearing them to class.
While that was happening, Taylor was also taking steps to regain her place at the university, according to her father. Ryan Starling says it was a “transformative” experience that motivated her both athletically and academically. She has since regained her place on the varsity team, and her father says she even beat a trans athlete by more than three seconds at a recent competition.
“She had so much support from her friends, because her friends wore all the shirts,” he said.
The Starling family has not only received positive attention, as Ryan Starling says, there have been more troubling negative messages and even threats. The family had to postpone their recent family vacation to accommodate Taylor’s safety for the trip to state, as her parents did not feel comfortable allowing her to travel alone.
“There was some negative stuff online, there were some threats of violence against our girls, there were different things, and we just didn’t feel comfortable leaving Taylor for a day and a half and flying out a day later so she could run at state, so we decided to stay all together as a family and support Taylor, and then we postponed our vacation until the first of the year,” said Ryan Starling.
The situation came to a potential tipping point during a five-hour RUSD school board meeting on Dec. 19. Outside the office, protests competed between activists and parents wearing “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts and LGBTQ activists.
Sources have he told Fox News Digital that LGBTQ activists at the event harassed protesters on the other side, and even disrupted a women’s prayer group during a prayer circle before the meeting.
Then, inside the meeting, parents and opposing activists gave impassioned speeches about their thoughts on the situation, with multiple speakers shouting in hysterical tones. But Ryan Starling, who stayed the entire game, got a glimmer of hope near the end of the game. She says that after it was all over, the newly appointed board member spoke to the girls who were there to protest the trans athletes and that the new board member suggested that their problem would be solved when President-elect Trump takes office in January. 20.
“Don’t worry girls, we’ve got your back, wait until January 20th,” the new board member said, according to Ryan Starling.
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Supporters of transgender athletes hold signs as a crowd gathers outside a Thursday night Riverside Unified School District meeting to discuss the rights of transgender athletes to compete in high school sports, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Trump has pledged to ban trans athletes from women’s and women’s sports, and the new Republican-controlled Congress has also indicated its intention to do so.
House rules package for the 119th Congress was announced this week, and the first step in its order is a bill that would lead to revisions to Title IX that would only allow athletes to compete in the gender category they were assigned at birth.
However, California and Governor Gavin Newsom have vowed to resist the incoming Trump administration.
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