Transgender high school runner in Washington wins state title in girls’ 400-meter dash
Veronica Garcia, a transgender high school runner in Washington, won a state title in the girls’ 400-meter dash on Saturday. (Credit: Quin Hutchins)
Girls’ track and field coach Dean Vergillo spoke out against his Washington high school team’s state loss against a transgender runner.
The Cedarcrest High School coach spoke to the Independent Women’s Forum about his team competing in the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) state track and field meet earlier in May.
One of his athletes had competed against 17-year-old transgender athlete Veronica Garcia in the 400-meter sprint. Though it wasn’t apparent that Garcia was a biological male, Vergillo remarked that it was easy to tell once the race started.
Veronica Garcia won the 400-meter sprint at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) state. (John Walton - PA Images via Getty Images)
"As a cross country and track coach, everybody has a running style," he said. "It’s kind of like your fingerprint — everybody runs a little bit differently. In this case, it was obviously a male running."
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Garcia went on to win the race, earning 10 points for East Valley High School. Vergillo noted that his high school’s team only lost the state meet to East Valley by eight points, meaning Garcia’s win was the deciding factor.
"This would’ve been much easier if we had lost by 30 points instead of by just eight," Vergillo said. "We can’t control what happened, so let’s make the most of it for us. Let’s enjoy this experience that we had."
He celebrated his runner’s efforts regardless, commenting that she "actually ran a school record." Vergillo was more bothered by the fact that he and his team "had no idea that this was coming."
Cedarcrest High School coach Dean Vergillo spoke to the Independent Womens Forum on his team losing to Veronica Garcia. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect)
"As a coach, I found out about it just through talking to other coaches from around the state," Vergillo said. "Then, in the [girls’] 400-meter open race, the individual from our school that qualified only found out about an hour before."
"It’s definitely going to be a bigger issue given that we’ll know what’s happening going into it. My biggest disappointment in this situation is how our state association [the WIAA] didn’t prepare us for what was coming," he said. "We’ve had many coaches, through text, emails, or just verbally, state their displeasure with the situation."
Fox News Digital reached out to WIAA for a comment.
Ashley McClure, storytelling assistant at the Independent Women’s Forum who broke the story, lamented the school’s loss to Fox News Digital but congratulated Vergillo’s positive attitude.
"We all know how devastating it is to young girls to lose their deserved accolades to biological males, but when boys take girls' titles, coaches—and schools—suffer too. Dean Vergillo's determination to encourage and reassure the girls on his team, despite the impossible odds that they faced, is truly inspiring," McClure said.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association does not require high school athletes to take part in hormone treatments to take part in female sports. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images | Photo by Swen Pförtner/picture alliance via Getty Images)
According to Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) policy, every athlete will compete in programs "consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed." However, the association does not require athletes to take part in hormone therapy or use hormone blockers.
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