NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Nothing was going to stop Alexa Anderson from stepping off the medal podium that night on May 30. Not when a biological male would be there up too.
Anderson had just finished in third place in the girls’ state championship high jump, marking her final Oregon high school track performance after four intense years of competition and training. But she wouldn’t see the medal for all that hard work for several months, she claims.
After she and fellow high jump podium finisher Reese Eckard, who finished in fourth, stepped down from the podium to protest a trans athlete who finished fifth, Anderson alleged she was forced out of the championship photo, and never given her third-place medal.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
The allegations are at the center of an ongoing lawsuit, which has already passed one legal hurdle after a federal judge denied an Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) motion to strike charges from the suit.
“I asked after the medal ceremony concluded, we went into kind of a tunnel that leads you back out to the audience, and I asked one of the officials, ‘Hey, are we going to get our medals?’ and she said they’d be shipped to our school. And then they were never shipped to our school,” Anderson told Fox News Digital.
Months of death threats followed. Anderson claims many critics even called her school, Tigard High School in Tigard, Oregon, lobbying for her expulsion, just before graduating.
She witnessed a childhood hero in Simone Biles attack and “bodyshame” Riley Gaines in defense of trans athletes in women’s sports – the very thing she was now getting threatened for standing up against. She witnessed a budding idol in Charlie Kirk get assassinated while speaking out about the trans community, all before she got her medal.
And she witnessed it all before getting her medal, allegedly.
She had to take the OSAA to court, suing over the alleged medal withholding and First Amendment violations, before finally getting her hardware.
“I did not receive my medal until recently,” Anderson said, adding the medals were sent directly to the law firm representing her in the legal battle, America First Policy Institute (AFPI).
Then, ceremoniously, the medals were presented to her and Eckard at the Fox Nation Patriot Awards earlier in November, when the two received the Most Valuable Patriot Award.
OREGON ATHLETES WIN ‘MOST VALUABLE PATRIOT’ AWARD AFTER REFUSING TO SHARE PODIUM WITH TRANS COMPETITOR
Reese Eckard and Alexa Anderson accept the Most Valuable Patriot Award from Will Cain and Martha MacCallum onstage during the Fox Nation Patriot Awards at Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Greenvale, New York, on Nov. 6, 2025. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
After all that waiting, Anderson now chooses to leave the medal at her parents’ house in Oregon, while she warms up for her freshman season at the University of South Alabama.
“It’s definitely frustrating that we didn’t get them in the moment… but it kinda is what it is at this point. There’s more important things that we’re fighting for,” she said. “Of course I wanted that medal, I worked super hard to get to that place where I was on the podium… but also a part of me knew that it was part of the sacrifice that I was making when I stepped off that podium, and there were going to be consequences.”
The consequences began right away, but got tougher over time.
There were consequences as early as the very moments after she stepped down from the podium on May 30.
“There were people who just kinda attacked us and were like, ‘You guys are bullies, you’re horrible people.’”
Anderson previously told Fox News Digital in June that most of the online reception she got after the incident was positive. But that changed as her story spread in the following weeks and months.
She started to learn what life was really like at the center of the culture war to “Save Women’s Sports.”
“There were people who were calling my school asking for me to be expelled, not being allowed to walk at graduation,” Anderson alleged. “There were people messaging me personally, just saying horrible things, death threats even.
“‘I hope you die,’” read one message, she alleges, with another reading, “‘Your parents are definitely embarrassed of you…’
“It definitely hurt.”
But it never hurt enough to get her to stand down.
Anderson said none of the harassment was enough for her to fear taking things further with a lawsuit.
“Part of me expected this and knew that’s just what happens when you stand up for what you believe in,” she said.
OREGON GIRLS WHO PROTESTED TRANS ATHLETE AT TRACK AND FIELD MEDAL PODIUM SCORE LEGAL WIN IN LAWSUIT
Oregon girls’ track and field athletes Reese Eckard and Alexa Anderson don’t stand on a medal podium next to a trans opponent. (Courtesy of America First Policy Institute)
And now her and Eckard’s lawsuit is progressing.
U.S. District Court Judge Youlee Yim You denied the OSAA’s motion to strike a portion of the lawsuit that highlighted what forms of political speech the league does allow, including Black Lives Matter and pro-LGBTQ pride messaging, which was a key point in the plaintiffs’ argument.
Anderson said she regularly witnessed other athletes across her four-year high school career protest at events, without ever getting punished.
“I’ve seen a lot of speech about support and rights for the LGBTQ community, the trans community, a lot of the Black Lives Matter movement stuff … wearing shirts, flags, that kind of stuff,” she said. “I think it’s really harmful to students to only allow them to express certain viewpoints that you agree with.”
Still, she never saw anyone else step down from a podium in protest. That’s her signature.
As Anderson and Eckard advance their lawsuit, they are aiming to bring protection of the First Amendment for all the state’s students, regardless of their beliefs.
Her attorney at AFPI, Leigh’Ann O’Neill, told Fox News Digital what it would take to settle the lawsuit.
“OSAA needs to very affirmatively take a stand and demonstrate that they will respect all viewpoints from their athletes and participants in their other extracurricular activities in Oregon,” O’Neill said. “When are we going to see Oregon step up and make it clear to their athletes that it is OK for you to disagree with us?
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“There are nominal damages requested as part of the lawsuit, which is sort of a technicality, and it’s really about ensuring the protection of their free speech.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the OSAA and Tigard High School for comment.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. He previously worked for ESPN and Business Insider. Jackson has covered the Super Bowl and NBA Finals, and has interviewed iconic figures Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz and Roger Clemens.
