For decades, women fought for their rightful place in competitive athletics. Title IX was supposed to be the guarantee – a binding promise that female athletes would have equal opportunities to train, compete, and earn what they deserved. That promise is now being hollowed out, not by opponents of women’s sports, but by bureaucrats and ideologues wrapping themselves in the language of “inclusion.”
What happens when every institution meant to protect young women abandons them? When administrators shrug and claim their hands are tied? When parents get threatened for holding a cardboard sign? When the rulebook itself betrays the very girls it was written to protect? Eventually, somebody refuses to play along. On Tuesday in Washington state, somebody did.
From the Daily Wire:
On Tuesday, more than a dozen female athletes at Camas High School in Washington took matters into their own hands when they were forced to compete against a high school boy at a cross country event against Battle Ground High.
At the sound of the starting gun, 13 of the 24 Camas runners walked just 50 meters off the line, before stepping off the course. One member of the opposing Battle Ground squad joined the boycott, refusing to run.
Fourteen girls. One starting gun. And a quiet, resolute act of defiance that has since ricocheted across the country. The question it raises is uncomfortable but necessary: Is this what it takes now to protect women’s sports? Do high school girls have to torpedo their own races before anyone pays attention?
Seventy-sixth among boys, second among girls
The athlete at the center of this controversy is junior Logan Mihailoff, who identifies as female and switched midseason from the boys’ division to the girls’ under Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules. On September 5, Mihailoff placed 76th out of 301 runners in a boys’ junior varsity 5K. Weeks later, racing against girls, Mihailoff placed second out of 195 at the Nike Portland XC Invitational, won a varsity event against Union High, and finished second again on Tuesday.
Seventy-sixth to second. Quite the overnight transformation. You don’t need a degree in exercise physiology to grasp what happened here – just a functioning pair of eyes.
Parent Sarah Burns, whose daughter Holly was among the 13 who walked off, nailed it: “A biological boy has bigger lung capacity, more muscles, and longer legs so they can run faster. They’ll kick a girl who has worked really hard out of a spot she deserves.”
No jargon. No ideology. Just plain truth.
Silenced for stating the obvious
The Burns family’s backbone wasn’t limited to the racecourse. Kevin and Sarah Burns arrived at Tuesday’s meet carrying signs. Sarah held one reading, “Keep Girls Sports Fair + Female.” Security descended on them almost immediately, insisting signs weren’t allowed. Kevin refused to budge. Multiple guards trailed him for the duration of the event.
Impressive deployment of resources for a dad holding a piece of poster board. Real profiles in administrative courage there.
It gets worse. At a September 15 meet, a different parent – not Burns – was slapped with a yearlong criminal trespass notice by the school district for protesting with signs and chanting near the track. Banned from school grounds for twelve months because he had the nerve to say out loud what most parents were whispering in private.
Sarah Burns described being confronted by a woman who identified herself as a psychiatric nurse and called her “a disgusting human” for her sign. Sarah’s response deserves to be remembered: “I told her that one day I’m gonna have to stand before my Lord and Savior and I’m gonna feel good about this.”
Other parents approached the Burnses quietly, admitting they agreed but were petrified of the fallout from speaking publicly. That fear is the whole strategy. Silence the dissenters, and the policy rolls forward unchallenged.
The ballot box and beyond
Washington voters face Initiative 638 on November 3, a straightforward measure requiring K-12 sports categories to be defined by biological sex. It shouldn’t be remotely controversial. But here’s the maddening part – even if it passes overwhelmingly, it won’t take effect for 30 days. Washington’s state cross-country championships are scheduled for November 7. Four days after the vote. The girls lose either way this season.
The broader machinery is moving, albeit slowly. President Trump’s February 2025 executive order directed federal agencies to protect female athletic opportunities. A federal investigation into Washington’s education policies opened in April 2025. A separate case involving a Washington female wrestler has reached the Supreme Court.
All welcome developments. But none of them arrived fast enough for 14 girls standing at a starting line on a Tuesday afternoon.
Backbone over compliance
Holly Burns initially didn’t want to make waves. But when her teammates started comparing notes, when they decided collectively that enough was enough, she joined them. Her father, Kevin, put it simply: “There’s cost to everything when you stand up for what you believe is right. If there wasn’t, then you’re not really standing up for anything.”
These girls gave up a race they’d trained all summer to run. They may face repercussions nobody can predict yet. Although they grasped something that the administrators, the policy writers, and the security guards apparently cannot: biology is not bigotry, and protecting women’s sports is a hill worth standing on.
Support these girls. They’ve got more grit than every bureaucrat who shrugged and looked the other way.
Key Takeaways
- Thirteen Camas High girls walked off a cross-country race rather than compete against a biological male athlete.
- The male athlete jumped from 76th among boys to 2nd among girls after a midseason team switch.
- Parents who protested faced security harassment and even yearlong trespass bans from school grounds.
- Washington’s Initiative 638 would define K-12 sports by biological sex – voters decide November 3.
Sources: Daily Wire, OutKick
