UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. â When the Camas High cross-country runner’s name was called, Joel Retzlaff yelled, “That’s a man!”
Retzlaff is the outspoken father of Skyview High cross-country runner Sierra Retzlaff, who has publicly opposed competing against a biological male. But as Joel made that declaration, nobody walked up to the podium. The Camas boy, who switched to the girls’ team midseason, was nowhere to be found.
Camas coach Matt LeGrand â who’s in an impossible position â would not comment on why. But there’s a decent chance the runner didn’t want to face a crowd who knew that, by finishing seventh in regionals, he prevented an actual girl from advancing to state.
DAD BANNED FROM SCHOOL GROUNDS AFTER PROTESTING TRANS RUNNER COMPETING AGAINST HIS DAUGHTER
We won’t mention that girl’s name here, but she ran for Puyallup High â which finished eighth in the girls’ 4A division. The top seven teams go on to state, and if not for the Camas runner’s contribution, Puyallup would have advanced.
That team’s coach also wouldnt comment. Understandable. This is the story that, on Halloween, had almost everybody involved spooked.
The key word above is “almost,” because there were some people at that meet at Chambers Bay who were willing to speak up. One of them was Carol Brown, a three-time Olympian who won a bronze medal in rowing who can’t believe she’s on the front lines for an issue she thought was settled a half century ago.
“I fought for Title IX to be allowed to be in sports period, and so I’ve been fighting this battle. I never thought 50 years later I’d be fighting it again,” Brown said. “And I absolutely believe in rights for everyone to participate in sport, but for it to be fair and safe, it has to be based on sex.”
What do you think about this Camas runner displacing another girl?
“It’s absolutely unfair,” Brown said. “The girls put in work, and what I find the hardest to accept is that everyone is saying the girls’ voices don’t matter, their emotions don’t matter, their hard work and once again, like 100 years ago took a second seat to the males.”
The Camas runner started the season on the boys’ team, where he finished 76th in the season’s opening JV meet. After switching to the girls’ team, he has won a varsity meet and finished second three times. In the past two meets â first at districts last week and again at regionals Saturday â he placed just ahead of Skyview runner Charlie Garrett.
Safe to say Garrett wasn’t happy about that.
“I mean, it’s really frustrating. I was sad after my race because I was less than a second away [from beating the Camas runner],” said Garrett, admitting that beating him was a side goal of hers Saturday. “But I PR’d, and I qualified for state, so I shouldn’t be sad.”
What do you think about him not showing up on the podium?
“It shows why he shouldn’t be in it,” Garrett said. “He has a reason not to show up.”
But plenty more opposing the Camas runner’s participation showed up Saturday. One of them was Jasmin Faulk, the executive director of Women’s Liberation Front (WOLF) â who lost her job at a community college due to a blog post about how “biology still
