A Camas, Washington, father has been served a criminal trespass notice barring him from Camas High School property for a year after he protested at a cross-country meet over a transgender athlete competing on the girls’ team.
Joel Retzlaff held up a sign reading “XX/XY” at the event, according to reporting by OutKick. When security asked him to put the sign away, he complied. As he walked to his car afterward, he chanted, “Keep boys out of girls’ sports.” The Camas School District subsequently issued him a no-trespass order.
The protest centered on a runner who competed for the boys’ junior varsity cross-country team on September 5, finishing 76th, before competing for the girls’ varsity team on September 29 in a meet against Union High School, where the runner finished first.
A separate case drew attention at the Nike XC Portland Invitational, where Camas High freshman Logan Mihailoff placed second out of 195 runners in the girls’ junior-senior JV race after having competed on the boys’ JV team earlier in the season.
OutKick reporter Matt Calkins visited Camas High School while reporting the story. An assistant cross-country coach told him, “Nobody wants to talk to you. I’m trying to be nice.”
Not everyone declined to comment. Kent Lake of Lake Stevens, Washington, told OutKick: “We’re about as liberal as it gets. I just don’t agree with that [boys competing against girls]. I mean, if they find your body in 300 years, what are they going to say you were. Look, you can live any way you want. You got my blessing. But I mean come on, in competitions? It’s like stock car racing. It’s gotta be even, and it’s gotta be fair.”
A mother of a cross-country runner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “When I first heard about this story, I was like, ‘Is this real? That can’t be real.’ We have daughters, and it’s robbing them of an opportunity to compete.”
Other parents and athletes who spoke with OutKick also requested anonymity. One person offered a different view, saying, “There are more important things in sports than that.”
Retzlaff’s daughter told OutKick why she, her sister and her father chose to speak publicly about the issue: “Because if we don’t, no one else will. If we start something, maybe others will have the courage to join.”
The Camas School District has not publicly detailed the specific policy basis for the trespass notice beyond the sequence of events described by witnesses and reporters at the scene.
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