Payton McNabb, the North Carolina high school athlete with a career-ending injury caused by a boy saying he was a girl so he could play, is expected to join President Donald Trump and his wife Melania as a special guest Tuesday night for the State of the Union.
“Thank you, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for inviting me to be a guest at the State of the Union Address,” McNabb said in a release from the Independent Women’s Forum, for which she is a national ambassador. “I was also recently in Washington when I got to stand behind President Trump signing an executive order to keep men out of women’s sports. It’s such an honor, as a former female athlete, to be here and to watch President Trump stand up so strongly for women’s and girls’ rights to equal opportunity, privacy, and safety. We are worth fighting for. And the president, who knows what a ‘woman’ is, won’t let the injustice against women go on.”
McNabb’s sister Avery is planning to attend with her.
Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025, also known as Senate Bill 9 and designed to regain strength in the original Title IX signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972, failed to advance Monday night. Notably voting against it were 15 women Democrats – Sens. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Lisa Rochester of Delaware, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Magaret Hassan of New Hampshire, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan did not vote. She’ll also give the Democrats’ rebuttal to the president’s speech tonight.
McNabb is among the youngest leading voices for restoration of not only Title IX from the changes tried by the Biden administration, but also protection of women’s spaces in general such as restrooms and prisons. The unquestioned leading voice is her friend Riley Gaines. Paula Scanlan, like Gaines impacted by NCAA rules or lack thereof, is another.
McNabb and Gaines went to Raleigh, helping push to the finish line Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. North Carolina High School Athletic Association rules were subsequently impacted. All three young women were part of the Our Bodies Our Sports’ “Take Back Title IX Summer Bus Tour” that spoke to tens of thousands of Americans winding its way to the nation’s capital.
McNabb suffered serious injuries in her final season at Hiwassee Dam High in Murphy when the spike from an opponent hit her in the face (caution: linked video action may be disturbing.) It was the first week of September 2022, her senior season just beginning after her earlier prep career had been marred by COVID-19 and a restrictive state government.
McNabb was knocked out for about 30 seconds. When she came to, there was memory loss with the concussion. Now a student at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, she has told lawmakers and many audiences about continuing to suffer partial paralysis on her right side, chronic headaches, learning challenges and impaired vision from the incident.
“I might be the first to come before you with an injury, but if this doesn’t pass, I won’t be the last,” McNabb said while pushing the state bill forward at the General Assembly.
Trump pointed to her story multiple times while campaigning in 2024. The issue resonated nationwide, and in McNabb’s home state the two-term Republican president carried 78 of 100 counties on the way to defeating Democrat Kamala Harris by 183,048 votes of 5,699,141 cast.
McNabb’s story is the focus of a documentary, “Kill Shot: How Payton McNabb Turned Tragedy into Triumph.”
“This issue is a lot greater than me,” the former three-sport athlete said. “I thank the Lord He had a plan for me. I’m going to keep fighting for my sisters, and female athletes in general, their basic rights that are getting taken away from us.”
