Payton McNabb, a former high school athlete and advocate against trans girls’ inclusion in women’s sports, is set to appear tonight as a guest during President Donald Trump’s address to Congress.

McNabb made national headlines in October 2022 following a North Carolina high school volleyball match where a player on the opposing team spiked a ball that hit McNabb in the head. McNabb was injured with a concussion and traumatic brain injury, and said that her opponent was a transgender girl.

HuffPost could not independently verify the identity of the player.

McNabb’s story circulated from North Carolina school board meetings and parental rights organizations to the state legislature where she testified in support of state House Bill 574, which bars trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in 2023.

That year the state legislature overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to pass the ban. Cooper urged lawmakers against making “uniformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children.”

Between 2019 and 2023, only two trans girls were approved by the state’s athletic association to play on girls’ teams, and 12 trans boys were approved to play on boys’ teams.

McNabb’s invitation to the White House signals Trump’s continued commitment to making good on his campaign promises to bar trans women and girls from school sports.

Last month, Trump signed an executive order entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which requires federally funded K-12 schools and colleges to block trans women and girls from participating in women’s sports. So far, the order has not been challenged in court.

McNabb — now an undergraduate student at Western Carolina University and an ambassador with the Independent Women’s Voice — was also present during the signing. So was Riley Gaines, another Independent Women’s Voice ambassador, who began campaigning against trans inclusive Title IX policies after she tied for fifth place with Lia Thomas, a trans swimmer, at the 2022 NCAA swimming and diving championships.

The two women are both activists for Independent Women’s Voice, a conservative women’s policy organization that lobbies for state and federal legislation to bar trans athletes and redefine sex to erase the recognition of trans people. The organization is backed by several wealthy donors including Leonard Leo, the right-wing billionaire legal activist who advised both Trump and former President George W. Bush on judicial nominations to reshape the Supreme Court’s to its conservative majority.

In less than a month, Trump’s executive order barring trans athletes has already reshaped policies across federal agencies. In February, the U.S. State Department ordered its staff around the world to deny visas to trans athletes that attempt to come to the U.S. for athletic competitions, including the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a memo that the department said it would permanently ban visa applications against those who are “suspected of misrepresenting their purpose of travel or sex.”

These changes on the federal level come after 25 states passed laws specifically restricting trans girls and women from participating in women’s sports since 2020, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

Republicans across state and federal governments have stoked fears about the threats that female trans athletes pose to the future of women and girls’ sports — despite the lack of scientific evidence to show that these women had any kind of advantage. In 2024, the NCAA president estimated there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes participating in college sports across the country.

Still Republicans in Congress have tried ― and thus far failed ― to pass a national ban on trans women and girls’ participating in sports at federally funded schools. Yesterday Senate Democrats narrowly blocked a Senate Bill 9, entitled “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025,” from advancing.

Ahead of the vote, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville appeared on Fox News claiming, without providing any evidence, that women’s sports were under attack.

“We’re getting to a point now where women and girls’ sports are getting ready to be extinct. Because already in states across this country, we have high school teams that are made up totally of boys participating against girls,” he said.

Senator Tuberville’s office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.