‘I don't care,' says Jurupa Valley's AB Hernandez, transgender athlete at center of controversy

All eyes will be on Jurupa Valley’s AB Hernandez at this weekend’sCIF State Track and Field Championships in Clovis.

Hernandez, 17, has been unwillingly thrust into the political spotlight as the face of the debate around transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports.

“When I’m on the runway, I’m just in my own world,” she said in a Thursday phone interview a day after graduating from Jurupa Valley High School. “I’m just trying to keep it all out of my mind.”

She’s been discussed by President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom and been the target of conservative groups like Save Girls Sports.

All that “only pushes me to go harder,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez won multiple state championships in 2024 and 2025. Last year, she took first place in the triple jump and high jump and second place in the long jump. Last weekend, Hernandez finished first in the long jump, triple jump and high jump at the CIF-Southern Section Masters Meet in Moorpark.

She’s ranked in the Top 10 nationally in all of her events and is tied for California’s top high jump mark, tied for second in long jump and ranks second in triple jump.

“Track is a very singular sport; it teaches you to rely on yourself,” Hernandez said. “Once you’re on the track, you just stay focused on the track.”

The protesters at meets don’t get to her.

“I just laughed” when she saw them, she said. “I don’t care.”

Demonstrators announced plans to be outside the stadium in Clovis this weekend.

“We know that she’s earned the place that she earned,” AB’s mother, Nereyda “Nena” Hernandez, said in a Thursday phone interview. “And her success — it has nothing to do with the athlete being trans, cis or whatever. It's about putting in the work.”

Despite the controversy over transgender student-athletes, they are rare.

The Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that studies sexual orientation and gender identity, estimates about 3.3% of people between 13 and 17 years old identify as transgender.

In December 2024, NCAA President Charlie Baker, testifying before a Senate panel, said there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes competing in the NCAA out of roughly 510,000 athletes.

You wouldn’t know it from the discourse around them.

At last year’s state meet in Clovis, a group called Women Are Real flew a plane pulling a banner reading “No Boys in Girls’ Sports” over the stadium.

Days before, Trump went after Hernandez on social media, threatening to withhold federal funding from California if transgender athletes are allowed to compete in girls sports. His administration sued the state over the issue. As of Friday, the lawsuit is still making its way through the legal system.

Newsom — widely expected to run in the 2028 presidential election — called transgender students’ participation in girls sports “deeply unfair.”

Sonja Shaw, president of the conservative Chino Valley school board and a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, attended a Frida rally in Clovis opposing transgender athletes in girls sports.

“Girls are being robbed of podium finishes, scholarships, records and even their sense of safety,” Shaw said by phone Thursday. “We have seen girls pushed out of the sports they love, some physically injured, and many choosing to graduate early simply to escape harassment and the reality of unfair competition against male athletes.”

AB also has her supporters, including state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, the Jurupa Valley City Council, the West Hollywood City Council and two California-based LGBTQ advocacy organizations, Rainbow Families Action and Pride at the Pier.

“This is a coordinated campaign of harassment towards a child, coming from adults and conservative think tanks that are not otherwise involved in these school sports,” Pride at the Pier Director Kanan Durham said by phone Thursday.

Fellow teens and student athletes aren’t the ones attacking AB, he said.

“They've got better things to do, dreams and goals of their own … and they've shown that not only are they uninterested in being a part of this campaign, but they are overall supportive of AB,” Durham said.

Arne Johnson, a lead sports organizer with Rainbow Families Action, agreed.

“She's a girl who just wants to compete with the other girls; just wants to be honored in the same way,” he said. “They all became a part of this larger argument.”

Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer came out in support of trans high school athletes on the “I’ve Had It Podcast” on Sunday.

“When you understand the vulnerability, the stress, the danger of being a trans kid, and you understand almost half of them try to commit suicide, then you think, ‘We're gonna punish those kids, we're gonna cut them off from team sports?’” Steyer said on the podcast. “No, we're not.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2023, about 26% of transgender and questioning students tried to kill themselves in the past year — more than five times the rate for 5% cisgender males.

Twenty-seven states, mostly in the South and rural states, have passed laws banning transgender students from playing sports with their gender identity.

Hernandez is not the first transgender athlete subjected to scrutiny.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1266 into law in 2013. The bill — the subject of an unsuccessful attempted ballot measure to block it — requires public schools to treat students as the gender with which they identify, rather than the one they were born into. A year later, Azusa High School senior Pat Cordova-Goff played on the girls softball team after previously playing on the school’s baseball team as a freshman.

In 2020, Boise State freshman Lindsay Hecox wanted to participate in women’s track and field and club sports. The same year, the Idaho legislature passed the first state ban on transgender student athletes. Hecox, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued. State and federal courts sided with her, preventing the law from going into effect. She was able to participate in club sports as a woman as a result.

In September 2025, Hecox asked the court to dismiss the case, citing the negative public scrutiny to which she had been subjected, promising not to participate in women’s sports covered by the act while in Idaho. A federal judge denied her request and the case was argued before the Supreme Court in January. As of Friday, they have yet to announce a ruling.

In California, CIF instituted a policy allowing cisgender female competitors beaten by Hernandez in the final standings to tie her in those respective events at the state finals, literally sharing a spot on the winner’s podium. And at the prestigious Arcadia Invitational in April, a policy was instituted to award duplicate medals to any athletes beaten by Hernandez. She finished first in the long and triple jumps and third in the high jump.

The CIF has the same policy for this year’s finals. Unlike last year, it did so quietly, without a public announcement to accompany the decision.

“Any cisgender female student-athlete who would have earned a specific placement on the podium will also be awarded the medal for that place, and the results will be reflected in the recording of the event,” a letter distributed to coaches on May 16, said.

The duplicate medals feel like an erasure of her achievements, Hernandez said after the CIF-SS finals on May 16.

“Like it's not real," she said. "I'm just there to participate, basically. It's a little bit of a struggle to get it out of my mind."

Southern California school districts have had mixed responses to openly transgender student athletes.

Inland Empire high schools, including Riverside Poly, Rim of the World, Aquinas in San Bernardino, Yucaipa, San Dimas and Patriot in Jurupa Valley, all forfeited games rather than play against Hernandez’s varsity volleyball team.

The Redlands school board voted to bar transgender athletes from sports that do not align with their gender assigned at birth.

Members of the public urged the Riverside school board to take a stand against transgender athletes participating in girl’s sports. Meanwhile, student protesters accused the district of doing too little to protect trans students from bullying. The board said it intended to comply with AB 1266.

Murrieta-based conservative law firm Advocates for Faith & Freedom sued Jurupa Unified on behalf of two Jurupa Valley High students and a former student. The lawsuit alleges a trans athlete — identified only as “AH” in the suit — sexually harassed girls and had an unfair competitive advantage.

And a federal court revived a lawsuit filed on behalf of two female cross-country athletes at Riverside’s Martin Luther King High School against the Riverside Unified School District. The suit alleges a transgender athlete — who no longer attends the school — received preferential treatment on the school’s girls’ cross-country team.

The Hernandez family is keeping AB’s future plans quiet.

“This is a family that's been thrust into the public eye in a way that's never been expected,” said Daisy Gardner, a family friend who met the Hernandez family at track meets that her own trans daughter competes in.

“They’re just looking forward to celebrate, have some privacy, get a break,” Gardner said. “Amidst all the darkness, we need the light. We need to celebrate the wins each time there is one - and this is a big one (for AB). To make it through, graduate, and come out on top.”

In other words, this weekend is a victory lap.

"It's nice to know that I'm going out feeling good," AB Hernandez said.

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This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 1:15 PM.