An LGBTQ activist was arrested for allegedly striking a car with a pink-and-blue flag outside the California track and field championships, where a transgender athlete advanced to the girls’ finals amid tight security and protests.
Ethan Kroll, 19, was arrested for assault with a weapon, vandalism and delaying an officer following an altercation Friday outside Buchanan High School in Clovis, the site of the California Interscholastic Federation meet.
Josh Fulfer said he and his wife had stopped at a red light after protesting for two hours against transgender athletes in girls’ sports when they were confronted by the black-clad, masked suspect.
“They said something to me, and I said, ‘Why are you so embarrassed to show your face? Take off the mask.’ Next thing I know they’re coming across to the center divide where we are with the flagpole and starts hitting me,” Mr. Fulfer told CBS47.
Mr. Fulfer said he was hit in the chest, arm and leg as he tried to deflect the attack, after which the protester began hitting his car with the end of the flagpole. The Fulfers’ 4-year-old son began crying, and Mrs. Fulfer urged her husband to use pepper spray to fend off the attacker.
“After about five or six hits I was able to get my pepper spray and pepper-spray them,” said Mr. Fulfer. “That got them at least down a little bit. Then they started hitting the outside of the vehicle. I ran the red light, got to a safe area, pulled over. When I turned around, I saw the Clovis PD already going toward the scene and the situation and taking that person into custody.”
Clovis Police Sgt. Chris Hutchison told Fresno’s KFSN-TV that the person inside the car “deployed pepper spray in self-defense.”
Small bands of protesters gathered outside the stadium, and a plane flew overhead with a banner with the message “No Boys in Girls’ Sports,” but that failed to deter transgender athlete A.B. Hernandez.
The Jurupa Valley High School junior advanced to the finals after easily qualifying Friday in all three girls’ jumping events: the high jump, long jump and triple jump. The final round of the two-day track championship begins Saturday afternoon.
Hernandez had the best jumps or tied for the top jump in all three events. In the high jump, the athlete tied with four other competitors with a mark of 5 feet 5 inches.
In the long jump, the athlete landed 6 inches ahead of the second-place finisher. In the triple jump, Hernandez routed the closest competitor by 9 inches.
The state finals drew national attention after President Trump threatened Tuesday to pull federal funding from California unless the state complies with his Feb. 5 executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
The next day, the Justice Department joined the Education Department’s investigation into whether California has violated Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans sex discrimination in education.
The federation responded to the outcry by announcing that it will award qualifying slots or podium medals to any girls bumped in the three jumping events, although the organization didn’t mention Hernandez or reference transgender athletes.
Advocates for single-sex female sports argued that biological boys like Hernandez have a host of physical advantages that girls can’t match, while transgender-rights defenders counter that excluding Hernandez from the girls’ field is discriminatory.
Nereyda Hernandez, the athlete’s mother, said her child has competed for three years in girls’ track without incident in compliance with CIF rules and state law, which requires schools to let students participate in sports based on gender identity.
“As a mother, my heart breaks every time I see my child being attacked, not for a wrongdoing, but simply for being who they are,” she said in a statement. “My child is a transgender student-athlete, a hardworking, disciplined and passionate young person who just wants to play sports, continue to build friendships and grow into their fullest potential like any other child.”
At a Thursday press conference, Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld said, “California has sadly turned its back on girls’ sports in the name of political correctness.”
He added, “Allowing biological boys to compete in high school girls’ track and field championships is disgraceful and simply wrong. Only in California could such an absurd and dangerous policy not only be allowed but celebrated. This is not inclusion. This is insanity, and it must stop.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.