What we know about the trans high school student at the center of Trump's threat to remove California funding
A transgender high school student was pushed into the national spotlight this week after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California over her participation in this weekend's state track and field championships.
A.B. Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School, is at the center of controversy after she qualified in the long jump and triple jump in the upcoming meet, prompting the agency governing high school sports in California to change its rules to allow more cisgender girls to compete.
The California Interscholastic Federation said in the announcement Tuesday it decided at the end of its track and field qualifying meets last weekend to 'pilot an entry process' for the championships, inviting those 'biological female' student athletes who would have otherwise earned a qualifying mark were it not for the participation of trans students in the competition, an automatic entry to compete in the finals.
On Tuesday, President Trump said, 'Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to,' in a post on Truth Social.
President Trump's statement alluded to his February executive order titled 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports,' which leans on compliance with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving funding from the federal government.
In an interview with the nonprofit news organization Capital & Main earlier this month, Hernandez said after competing on the team for three years, this is the first year her presence has received backlash. 'There's nothing I can do about people's actions, just focus on my own,' Hernandez told Capital & Main. 'I'm still a child. You're an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person.'
The Hernandez family declined to comment for this story when contacted by CNN.
Here's what we know about the student athlete and why her participation in women's sports events has drawn controversy:
In its statement, the federation said the rule change only applies to this weekend's competition without specifying whether it will be set in place for all future sports events.
Coach Keinan Briggs, a club coach who is not affiliated with specific schools, coaches two student athletes – from Calvary Chapel High School in Santa Ana and Woodbridge High School in Irvine – who took lower places in the last weekend's competition due to A.B.'s participation.
At the Southern Section Masters Meet, A.B. finished first in the triple jump and long jump, qualifying her for the upcoming championships. Briggs' student Skyler Cazale, from Santa Ana, finished third in the triple jump last weekend but her third-place finish behind AB drew significant ire from the community, he told CNN.
According to the Capital & Main report, A.B. is ranked third in California in the triple jump but she's not highly ranked nationally.
A.B.'s placement also had a 'trickle effect,' which bumped his student from Irvine down because she did not make the qualifying list for the championships in the long jump, effectively ending her season, Briggs said.
The coach added he felt for the student and her parents because he 'couldn't give her the emotional support that I typically would give because it wasn't us, it was the way the system set up that put her in a position to where she couldn't continue.'
'That's been hard for her,' Briggs said. 'She also understands that the mark was the mark, she needed to hit that, but it comes down to the fairness of the event – the way it's set up – there was one less biological girl able to compete.'
While many parents and community members are upset, Briggs says he agrees with those who believe A.B. should be competing because there is not a specific category for transgender athletes. He doesn't believe the Trump administration should take away California funding, but says the bigger question should be: 'How do we give support for all athletes to be able to feel welcome, included, to where they're able to compete?'
Rather than taking away federal funding, Briggs said the federal funds should be used to create resources and opportunities for more student athletes in general.
A.B. has been training rigorously, said Briggs, who added he's watched her 'progression throughout the years. She is getting better; she's doing a great job. However, right now, the debate is where she should be competing.'
At a track meet earlier this month, A.B. was accompanied by campus security guards and deputies from the Orange County Sheriff's Department as she faced heckling and protesters in the crowd, Briggs said.
During a break at the meet, A.B. said in an exclusive interview with Capital & Main she has the support of most of the athletes she competes against. 'Girls were just shocked that people would actually come to do that, and really bully a child,' A.B. told the news organization.
'I've trained so hard. I mean, hours of conditioning every day, five days a week. Every day since November, three hours after school. And then all of summer, no summer break for me,' she said in the interview. 'A few people think I'm brave and strong and they hope to be like me one day. I say, don't just hope, make it happen.'
Sonja Shaw, a candidate for California superintendent of instruction in the 2026 election and an activist with the advocacy group Save Girls Sports, which is pushing for a ban on trans girl athletes from girls' athletics in the state, had a heated exchange with A.B.'s supporters and her mother, Nereyda Hernandez, according to Capital & Main reporting.
'What a coward of a woman you are, allowing that,' Shaw told A.B.'s mother, according to the Capital & Main report.
In a statement on Instagram earlier this month, A.B.'s mother said A.B.'s identity 'doesn't give her an advantage; it gives her courage. It takes immense bravery to show up, compete, and be visible in a world that often questions your very right to exist, let alone to participate.'
Nereyda Hernandez said in the post the actions of those who have 'doxed, harassed and violated my daughter A.B.'s privacy' are 'not only shameful, but they are also abusive,' and have created a 'hostile and unsafe environment for a minor.'
At the core of disagreements over transgender athletes' participation in sports, which prompted more than half of US states to implement bans on trans athlete participation since 2020, is whether transgender women have unfair physical athletic advantages.
Few trans athletes have reached elite levels of sports competition and even fewer have taken home top prizes, but their limited success has fueled the growing movement to ban them from participating on teams consistent with their gender identity, CNN has reported.
Research on trans people's athletic performance is scarce, and there have been no large-scale scientific studies on the topic or on how hormone therapies may affect their performance in specific sport categories, such as running or wrestling.
Trans athletes and advocates say trans people deserve the right to compete alongside their peers and reap the proven social, physical and mental benefits of sports.
Even among cisgender athletes, bodies and physical abilities vary widely, and traits that may be an advantage in one sport – such as grip strength or bone density – may not be an advantage in others, experts say.
A day after Trump's threat to withhold federal funding from California over A.B.'s participation in the sporting event, the Justice Department announced it was investigating whether California's School Success and Opportunity Act, which in part prohibits public schools from blocking transgender students from participating in school sports, violates Title IX.
Letters were sent by the Justice Department to the California Attorney General and the superintendent of public instruction, as well as the California Interscholastic Federation and the Jurupa Unified School District.
In a statement to CNN, the school district said it is required to follow California law and the state federation's policy regarding school athletics. 'Both state law and CIF policy currently require that students be permitted to participate in athletic teams and competitions consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil's records,' the Jurupa Unified School District said.
A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said the CIF's proposed pilot rule change for the upcoming championships is 'reasonable.'
Newsom has recently taken aim at a number of causes popular among progressives and previously said transgender girls and women competing is 'an issue of fairness' in a break from many Democrats' position on the topic.
'Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It's deeply unfair,' Newsom said in a podcast episode with conservative activist Charlie Kirk in March.
Leandra Blades, president of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District board of education, introduced a resolution last week she said would make the district compliant with Title IX, only allowing 'biological females' to compete in women's sports, but it failed on a 3-2 vote by the district's trustees.
She told CNN the issue of trans student athletes has 'been a low roar in our community for the last couple of years,' but complaints started to accelerate after A.B. competed at Yorba Linda High School within the school district.
The board of education president said she believes the federal government should take away funding from the state if trans women are allowed to compete in women's sporting events moving forward and if the new CIF rule only applies to the one championship meet.
Despite misgendering A.B. throughout her interview with CNN, Blades said she doesn't have 'any issues' with the LGBTQ+ community, adding: 'I just believe in fairness in women's sports, and we should follow Title IX.'
The school district prohibits harassment against any student, saying it has done a 'very good job with bullying policies and being inclusive to all students.'
CNN's Samantha Waldenberg, Stephanie Elam, Jen Christensen and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.
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