A volleyball player who was left with life-changing injuries after having her face smashed by a transgender athlete has said the Democrats owe her an apology.
Donald Trump paid tribute to Payton McNabb in his address to congress on Tuesday as he promised to follow through on his pledge to “ban men from playing in women’s sports”.
Ms McNabb, 19, from North Carolina, was an all-star high school athlete whose playing career was cut short in 2022 when a transgender player hit a ball into her face.
She was left with a traumatic brain injury and partial paralysis on her right side that scuppered her plans of playing sports at college.
Ms McNabb said it was an “incredible honour” to be invited to congress for Mr Trump’s speech and finally “feels heard” with the Republicans back in the White House.
“With the last administration I feel like we were begging and pleading for someone to listen to us,” she said, adding: “I feel that I am owed an apology.”
Despite rapturous applause from Republicans when she was introduced by Donald Trump, the majority of the Democrats remained stony-faced and silent when Mr Trump read out her story.
“It was completely embarrassing the way they acted,” Ms McNabb said, describing some Democrats’ decision to wear pink to show their support for women as “hypocritical”.
A day before the speech, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act – which would have enshrined Title IX discrimination protections “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” – was blocked by a united front of Democrats.
“I don’t understand why they claim to be the party for women when they genuinely don’t support us – I think it’s all for show,” she said, adding that Democrats are “just hurting themselves”.
“I think it’s all talk, but actions matter more than what they say. They’ve proven over and again that they don’t think women are important enough to fight for on this issue.”
During his speech, the president invited Ms McNabb to sit in the same row as Melania Trump, the first lady, and pledged that “from now on, schools will kick the men off the girls team or they will lose all federal funding”.
The president said that the situation is “demeaning” and “very bad for our country”. “We’re not going to put up with it any longer,” he said.
“It was so surreal. What an incredible honour. I was so thankful to be there, especially to be the president and the first lady’s guest,” Ms McNabb said of the occasion.
Before the speech got under way, she said she had the opportunity to meet the first lady, who she said was “incredibly kind and supportive” and a “really genuine person”.
Aged 17, Ms McNabb was playing volleyball for Hiwassee Dam High School in Murphy when a transgender player on the opposite team spiked a ball into her face, causing her to suffer a concussion, a brain bleed and two black eyes.
After further tests, she discovered she had suffered a traumatic brain injury, stopping her from playing volleyball, softball and basketball, which she had trained for her whole life until that point.
“That was a really dark time for me,” she said. “It was the beginning of my senior year and I had been working out my whole life until that moment, and then it was all cut short.”
Following her injuries, she became an advocate for fair and safe competition in women’s sports to ensure that other athletes would not end up going through the same experience.
On top of dealing with ongoing health problems, Ms McNabb said she did not feel welcomed at Western Carolina University, where she is studying for a degree in communications, owing to her advocacy work, and has chosen to finish her degree online as a result.
“I didn’t feel really welcome there because people were really against what I was doing and what I was advocating for. I just never felt really wanted at that school,” she said.
“Now it’s forced me to move back home and finish my degree online because of the reaction from students and staff at the university.”
Addressing Democrats who voted against the efforts of the new administration to keep biological men out of women’s sports, Ms McNabb said they had lost the trust of voters on the issue.
“All the credibility they might have had is gone,” she said. “They did it to themselves. They had the opportunity to fight for women, and they completely failed them.”
Mr Trump made banning transgender athletes from women’s sport a key plank of his election campaign, paying for widely distributed ads that stated: “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
Since Mr Trump’s return to the White House, some senior Democrats have spoken out against the party’s embrace of transgender ideology, with Tom Suozzi, the New York representative, saying: “I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.”
Senator Bernie Sanders has also warned Democratic candidates not to “hang your hat” on identity politics.
Ms McNabb said that she is not opposed to transgender people living their lives as they wish to, but draws the line when it comes to female sports.
“I don’t care what anyone does with their life,” she said. “Trans athletes can still play, they can just play in their biological category – it’s really that simple.
“I don’t know why it gets blown up into this big controversial fight. At the end of the day it’s just biological reality.
“Eighty per cent of Americans agree on it. It’s hard to get 80 per cent of America to agree on anything, so the fact that the Democrats ignore that and try to push this woke agenda is just sad for them.”
