Jayapal Says Transgender Athletes Don’t Hurt Anyone, Former Volleyball Player Disagrees

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A former high school girls’ volleyball player who was injured in a game by an opponent identifying as transgender is calling out a Democrat congresswoman who claims that having transgender athletes in female sports doesn’t hurt anyone.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on March 21, 2024. (House Judiciary GOP YouTube/Twitter/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Payton McNabb, a 19-year-old from North Carolina, was struck in the face by a male who identifies as transgender in her varsity high school volleyball match in September 2022. The male knocked Ms. McNabb unconscious in a spike—a move intended to hit the ball in the game.

The incident forced Ms. McNabb to spend months recovering from headaches and concentration problems. She also missed the remainder of her volleyball season.

Ms. McNabb said she suffered from a neck injury, concussion, lasting vision impairment, and partial paralysis in the right side of her body, as well as mental anguish.

“Just getting back from my second doctor appointment this week, a year and a half later, I’m definitely going to have to disagree,” Ms. McNabb posted Thursday on X. “My life is forever changed because of an injury by a boy. So yeah … men have harmed women in our sports. But as long as your feelings don’t get hurt, right?,”

Ms. McNabb was responding to a clip of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who made an emotional argument during Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing over a bill that, among other things, would prohibit male athletes from representing the United States in future women’s Olympic competitions.

“Why are you doing this?” a teary Ms. Jayapal asked the bill’s sponsors. “It is a tiny portion of people across the country that identify as trans, and not a single one of them is doing anything to harm you or your family.”

Riley Gaines, an collegiate swimmer-turned advocate of preserving spaces for females, voiced her support for Ms. McNabb.

“Payton is partially paralyzed on her right side, her vision and memory are impaired, and her sports career ended prematurely because of a man posing as a woman. Democrats who deny this is happening are evil,” she wrote on X, along with a video clip showing the moment Ms. McNabb was hit by the spike.

A former University of Kentucky swimmer, Ms. Haines was forced to compete against and share a locker room with transgender athlete Will “Lia” Thomas, who captured gold in the 500 freestyle at the 2022 National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Championships. She is also among more than a dozen other female athletes who are suing the NCAA for violating Title IX, a federal law that promises equal treatment and athletic opportunities for women and girls.

The athletes’ lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Atlanta, alleges that NCAA’s “radical departure from Title IX’s original meaning” is harming women by subjecting them to “a loss of their constitutional right to bodily privacy.”

“Title IX was enacted by Congress to increase women’s opportunities; therefore, no policy which authorizes males to take the place of women on women’s college sports teams or in women’s college sports locker rooms is permissible under Title IX,” the complaint read.

The female athletes also accused the NCAA of depriving women’s places, titles and public recognition by permitting transgender players who “retained male advantage, size, strength, power, and speed” into women’s sports teams. “The NCAA gives males who wish to compete against women the option to suppress testosterone to a level that is still above the highest level a female can produce without doping,” it noted.

Democrats Oppose Women Protection Bill

The lawsuit comes as House Resolution 7187, formally called the Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, advanced out of the committee and went to the full House for a vote.

Sponsored by 27 Republicans, the bill would require all national governing bodies for amateur sports to “prohibit a person whose sex is male” from participating in exclusively female competitions. This would affect sports events such as Olympic games and national championships.

Earlier in Thursday’s hearing, Ms. Jayapal invoked her own child who identifies as a transgender girl, imploring those who back the measure to question whether they could still do the same if they had a “trans daughter.”

“I am the proud mother of a trans daughter, and every time these bills come up, I ask you to think about what it would be like if your daughter was the one that you were talking about,” she said. “What would it be like if you were telling her she does not have the right to be who she is?”

Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), co-chair of the Equality Caucus, denounced HR 7187 as “a hate bill” that would “incite violence and ultimately remove trans people from public life.”

“I want trans girls and women to know: You deserve to participate and thrive in the sports you love,” she said.