How support helped AB Hernandez, trans track and field champ ‘with mad attitude,' brave national backlash
JURUPA VALLEY, Riverside County — After two transgender girls were bullied out of competing at the California state track and field championships in 2023, jumper AB Hernandez was prepared to make the leap 'alone' in a potentially hostile Veteran's Memorial Stadium some hundred miles away from home when her time came in 2025.
The applause she heard when her name was announced in Clovis as a finalist for the long jump, after her mere presence had attracted the scorn of none other than the President of the United States, helped her realize she was safe.
'I was expecting for it to be dead silent,' AB said.
It was the kind of acceptance she was once hesitant to ask for, even of her mother.
Flash back to when she was in ninth grade. At 1:30 a.m. one morning in the Hernandez household, AB wept. Her identity as a transgender girl was years removed from becoming national news. Only her mom, Nereyda, could console her. At AB's bedside, Nereyda asked, 'What's wrong?'
Nothing, she would learn. Nothing was wrong.
AB had begun dressing as a girl about a year earlier. She wore a blanket hoodie most mornings to conceal as much, unsure how Nereyda, who raised four kids in a Catholic family, regularly attending Sunday Mass, might react. AB holed up in her room as much as possible to limit any potential risk of being found out. A friend of Nereyda's eventually filled her in, assuming she already knew.
Nereyda admitted she did not fully understand at first. That early morning, some months later, cleared all doubt. A broken-down AB said she did not know how to be a boy.
'It was definitely difficult in the beginning but she let whatever she had known go,' AB told the Chronicle. 'She's like, 'You're still my kid, so this is what it's going to be.''
Last weekend, AB Hernandez was crowned a California Interscholastic Federation state champion in triple jump and high jump. In accordance with the CIF's new policy, she was accompanied by at least one peer on all of her podium placements, including when she finished second in long jump. A duplicate medal was awarded to the jumper who finished one spot behind AB in her three events, an attempt at compromise announced after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from the state if AB was allowed to compete in the girls division.
Nereyda, a former Trump supporter, watched as the President's comments rallied what she called a 'culture war' among conservative and liberal politicians, activists and pundits, only several months after her daughter had been outed as trans via doxxing by Sonja Shaw, school board president of the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County.
AB, 16, found a path forward through support she received. 'They picked the right kid for us, the wrong kid for them because, like (the protestors) said, we will not back down," she said.
At the behest of a friend, the first sport AB signed up for as a freshman at Jurupa Valley High was volleyball. She hesitated, for fear of upsetting others on the team. But her friend was adamant.
'I was like, 'OK, fine with me,' as long as I have one friend,' AB said. 'But then that one friend turned into all of them being my friends.'
A similar process ushered her into track and field. She did not join to switch from the boys to girls division in an effort to gain a competitive advantage — an argument invented by a handful of protesters at this year's state meet who also mistook AB, a jumper, for a runner. She had never competed against a boy in high school sports to begin with. Sports offered a space for her to just be herself, another one of the girls.
Nightly Facetime calls with a friend group of seven to eight helped steady her ahead of a weekend in Clovis that saw her chased down by a reporter from the Daily Mail, a London tabloid, in the Veteran's Memorial Parking Lot, the odd conclusion to what was, for her, an otherwise normal CIF state championships meet.
Fortunately for AB, she had the group she refers to as her future bridesmaids to laugh with after the fact.
'I got into (sports) like any other teenage girl — with her friends,' she said.
AB started as a hurdler at the recommendation of Jurupa Valley High School head coach Kevin Garcia, who would shortly come to find out her best event was one in which he had limited experience coaching. They spent countless hours at the sand pit, each learning from the other after every trial and error of long jump, a field event that requires as much strength and power as it does technical skill. She often took practice time away from her other two jumping events to master it.
By her sophomore year, AB medaled third in the long jump. This year as a junior, she finished fourth — nationally.
Her attempt of 12.87 meters, a personal record that comfortably positioned her atop the finals leaderboard at the CIF state meet, ranked fourth in the country behind two seniors from Illinois (Dominique Johnson, Huntley) and Pennsylvania (Destini Smith, Souderton Area), and one junior out of Texas (Mia Maxwell of Humble Atascocita).
'Since we were learning it together, I couldn't make mistakes,' AB said of Garcia. 'He didn't really know what a mistake was yet. So it was more just fun to me.'
In Clovis, AB made her best long jump, high jump and triple jump only after several hecklers yelled at her on the last day. She was initially mad, then motivated. She faulted on her first long jump attempt because, according to her, she was running extra fast. This wasn't the same AB who'd once hid in her room.
She felt normal, yet no less exceptional. The camaraderie AB found alongside those who shared the podium with her provided further assurance that she belonged.
Nereyda was proud; her youngest had found her place. In a world increasingly hostile to kids like her daughter, that's all she could ask for. The fact that AB matched her own 'sass' while doing so was a bonus.
'I get a lot of hate comments but I don't care,' AB said. 'A 16-year-old girl with mad attitude, like you think I'm going to care? … As long as it gets me into the modeling industry, I don't care. I'm 5-foot-9. Hit me up. I'll walk for Dior, maybe.'
AB is not certain what her future holds. She intends to participate in track and field again next spring. She has heard from colleges with preliminary interest in her as a track and field athlete. She also doesn't know whether the NCAA, which announced in February its readiness to follow Trump's executive order that limits participation in women's athletics to competitors it says were 'assigned female at birth only,' will ultimately let her compete after previously allowing trans athletes to compete.
For now, AB is looking forward to life as a 16-year-old. Coloring while watching the final season of 'Stranger Things.' Grooming her goldendoodle, Bear. Summer volleyball practice.
Nereyda hopes things return to normal in the coming months. But whatever new challenges arise, nothing can take away from a mother having seen her daughter at her happiest.
Sometime after that initial, impromptu heart-to-heart in the dead of night, AB and Nereyda were scheduled to attend a friend's quinceañera. AB walked out wearing a red dress, an unusually wide smile, and a look that longed for her mom's nod of approval. Nereyda knew then that nothing mattered more to her than her daughter.
'If it feels right, you'll know in your heart of hearts, you'll just know that this is right, this is me,' AB said. 'And there's just that sense of relief once it happens… a sense of relief and comfort in knowing who you are and just focusing on that.'
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