(The Center Square) – From lying injured on a gym floor in the mountains of North Carolina more than three years ago to the steps of the United States Supreme Court, Payton McNabb’s journeys have seldom if ever been more important than Tuesday.
Congressional hearings, the East Room for a presidential signing, and the U.S. Capitol for a State of the Union were huge moments. This week promises another when the high court hears oral arguments in two cases out of Idaho and West Virginia involving women and girls in sports.
“This is so important for women in general, but especially women athletes,” Payton McNabb told TCS in a one-on-one interview Friday. “To see it come this far is rewarding in some ways. But you can’t get too far ahead of yourself because you don’t know what will happen. It’s crazy to even think that the Supreme Court has to decide that men are not biologically different.”
She said it would be “absurd” for the justices to allow men into women’s sports, adding, “but you literally never know. I’m hopeful they’ll do the right thing. A lot of people are praying over this decision.”
Decisions from the justices are predicted to come in June.
McNabb won’t be alone in the rallies in front of the court. She expects to be flanked by Riley Gaines, the indisputable face of the movement to protect women’s sports, as well as Sophia Lorey, Jennifer Sey, Brooke Slusser, Macy Petty, Paula Scanlan, Tish Hyman and many others from the Independent Women organization.
It was Sept. 1, 2022, at Highlands High School when the spiked volleyball from an opponent changed McNabb’s life. The career of the Hiwassee Dam High three-sport athlete, a senior, was done. Today, she still battles medical issues.
Her struggles, she says, are “because of one guy” and adults who were enablers.
Tuesday, the nine justices hear Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., respectively.
Lindsay Hecox, now 24, didn’t make the women’s track and cross country teams at Boise State. Idaho law, a first of its kind in 2020, says athletes from elementary school through college are to participate on respective male or female teams based on “original birth certificate issued at the time of birth.”
B.P.J., 15-year-old high school student, has identified as female since third grade, using medicine to resist male puberty. West Virginia law, enacted in 2021, is like Idaho in using birth certificate at time of birth.
“I’ve had friends and family members against what I do, they hate what I do, when I speak out and they say I’m not being kind,” McNabb said.
Still, her fight is for her younger sister and for them.
“It’s for all women, no matter how they want to project their feelings in the argument,” she said. “I’m very hopeful and encouraged with all these strong and wonderful women who will be on the ground.”
In an interview with TCS last February, Independent Women’s Forum President Carrie Lukas said kindness and empathy didn’t work out. Language, she said, was lost or arguably stolen.
Gaines, a 12-time All-American swimmer at Kentucky, made it her mission to protect women’s spaces and in particular athletics. Scanlan, a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania subjected to undressing at daily practices with a fully intact male in the locker room, was among the first to join in when few others would. Sey, former global brand president at Levi’s, started her own XX-XY apparel company.
The movement was joined by the likes of Martina Navratilova and J.K. Rowling, arguably as good as any in their respective tennis and book author fields.
Their stories are many, their goal singular.
“No one could dare speak up to this machine we were up against,” McNabb said. But now, “Everyone can say it freely enough. I’m so proud of everybody. I’m proud of Riley – she got it started. She’s genuinely a heroine – so talented, she pushed and motivated so many to speak out. It’s not easy. If I’m getting it every single day, I know everyone else is, too.”
Crazy, absurd or otherwise, it’s a battle for which McNabb has no regrets. To feel the unity with others in gatherings Monday night, and rallies on Tuesday, she has genuine excitement and comfort.
“Courage begets courage, and that’s what we’ve seen,” she said. “We started with so few, and now it’s so many. And it’s because it happened to so many. The argument that it just happened to one girl, that argument is no more.”
