A Dozen Girls Walked Off the Start Line Rather Than Race Their Transgender Teammate — Now the Feds Want to Know What Happened on One Overnight Trip

When the horn sounded for a Tuesday-afternoon 5K in Camas, Washington, about half the girls wearing Camas High School singlets didn’t move. A pack of runners surged away within seconds. The rest turned and walked off the start line, forfeiting their race rather than run alongside one of their own teammates.

That was Oct. 13. A month later, this Clark County city on the Columbia River sits at the center of a national fight — and the U.S. Department of Education wants answers that go far beyond who crossed the finish line first.

On Thursday, the department’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title IX investigation into the Camas School District over a transgender girl on its girls’ cross-country team, according to a press release reported Friday by The Seattle Times, KOIN and The Columbian. It also asks whether the district failed to respond to what the department calls “alleged sexual harassment” on an overnight team trip.

The Season That Split a Team

The runner is a minor, and news outlets have not named her. She began the season in the boys’ category, finishing 76th in a boys’ junior varsity race on Sept. 5 with a time of 23:10, according to results reviewed by The Seattle Times. Ten days later she switched to the girls’ team — a move the state’s governing body for school sports, the WIAA, has said its gender-identity policy allows, even mid-season.

In late September she won a dual meet against Union High School in 19:29. Posts about her, amplified by former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines and podcaster Brandi Kruse, drew millions of views. Then came the walk-off. KUOW counted 12 of the team’s 24 girls stepping away from the line in the meet against Battle Ground High School.

Not every teammate joined them; others have publicly backed her, The Seattle Times reported. When she finished second at the district championship on Oct. 21, helping Camas win the team title, her name drew applause and cheers at the awards ceremony — and, from one spectator behind a metal barricade, a shout of “that’s a boy.”

What Parents Say Happened on the Trip

The federal case centers on the team’s Oct. 9–10 trip to the Nike Hole in the Wall invitational in Arlington, Washington. According to the Education Department, parents and team members alleged that the transgender runner entered a hotel room shared by three female athletes, took an ice bath in their bathroom and sexually harassed female teammates while traveling. The department’s release also cited flirtatious comments to another girl on a bus, The Seattle Times reported, drawing on the local outlet Clark County Today.

Parents further told the department that an independent investigator hired by the district did nothing to protect the girls. Instead, they said, the investigator asked them whether they were “transphobic” and whether they “hate trans people.”

Kimberly Richey, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, didn’t soften the message. “The voters in Washington stood up for women and girls in their state — and the Trump Administration stands with them,” she said in the release. On KVI’s Ari Hoffman show, she went further: “I will also just say to the parents of Washington State that the Trump administration stands behind you. We are gonna aggressively pursue these cases.” If investigators find violations and the district refuses to fix them, she said, its federal funding could be at risk.

The Superintendent Pushes Back

Camas Superintendent John Anzalone tells a different story. Speaking to Fox News’ OutKick, he called the ice-bath episode “highly blown out of proportion.” He said the ice baths were a team tradition district leaders hadn’t known about, that the transgender runner stayed in a separate hotel room with her mother, and that, as he understood it, the girl who felt uncomfortable left as soon as the runner came in.

An outside investigator retained through the district’s risk cooperative had already found allegations of inappropriate physical contact unsubstantiated, KVI reported, citing Clark County Today. That review did not dispute that the ice bath happened.

“I don’t think there are going to be any violations,” Anzalone told OutKick. “And if there were, and we made a misstep somewhere, we’ll move forward and correct that.” He acknowledged the district has since changed its rules so adults supervise team traditions, and called the whole situation a “lose-lose.” In a statement Friday, he added that the students “deserve to learn, compete, and enjoy their school experiences without becoming the focus of a national debate.” The district also points out that the federal notice itself says opening an investigation “is not evidence of a violation of federal civil rights laws.”

The Vote That Raised the Stakes

The probe lands days after Washington voters approved Initiative 638 on Nov. 3 with about 56% of the vote. The measure bans transgender girls from K-12 girls’ sports and requires every girl who wants to compete to get a healthcare provider to verify her “biological sex” — by reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or testosterone levels.

Supporters call that simple fairness. “The vast majority of Washington state voters agree that girls should have their sports and spaces protected,” said Darren Littell, executive director of Let’s Go Washington, the conservative group behind the initiative. Its backer, hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, wrote on X during the season: “This boy started the season on the boys team. When the initiative passes, he can go back to the boys team. No problem.”

Opponents call it an attack on every girl’s privacy. The ACLU of Washington, Legal Voice and the state teachers union have sued to stop the law before it takes effect Dec. 3. “Initiative 638 seeks to deny transgender girls those opportunities,” said ACLU staff attorney Adrien Leavitt. “We will fight to stop this law from taking effect.” State schools chief Chris Reykdal framed it this way to KIRO in October: “Can we accommodate 10, 12, 15 kids a year, and make them feel included. Or do we have to go through an initiative process where every single girl has to prove through one of three methods that she is a girl in order to participate?”

One Runner, 155 Finishers

The WIAA says it knows of no more than about 10 transgender athletes competing in Washington each year, out of roughly 225,000 student athletes. At the 4A state championship this month, the last race of the season, the Camas girls finished 12th. The runner at the center of it all placed 23rd out of 155.

To one side, that result changes nothing — the principle matters, and so do the girls who gave up races to defend it. “They should be able to focus on being teenagers and competing in the sports that they love, and not carrying the burden of fighting to be heard,” the mother of one of the walk-off runners told a rally in October. To the other side, it’s the whole point. “I always wanna remind people,” said John Gallagher, a former cross-country coach who campaigned against I-638, “this is one child.”

The season is over. The investigation has just begun.

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