Soleil Hofer is a senior at Prosser High School in Washington State and a member of the Class of 2021. She has been a dual student-athlete in track and field and soccer, and she is fighting for equal opportunities for women in sports and beyond.
00:06:07.100Will you just let us know when the first time you learned of this issue and I guess how you felt when you found out you would have to be racing a boy?
00:06:17.680So the first time I learned about this issue was last year at a Cheney invite.
00:06:22.980And one of my teammates had to run against this male athlete.
00:06:27.020And then, again, I saw him run at state and run the 400 and win by almost a whole three seconds.
00:06:34.320And I got to see the reaction of the girl who got second place.
00:06:38.060I saw her mom and her mom was so distraught.
00:06:41.080And this year I started running the 400.
00:06:43.880And that's when I learned that I would potentially, at the end of postseason, have to run against this male athlete.
00:06:50.200Yeah, you mentioned the impact on the girls.
00:06:52.820And it's something that I don't think is reported on enough, or at least accurately.
00:06:58.240We talk a lot, the media coverage that this issue tends to get.
00:07:02.360Unfortunately, it focuses on the boy oftentimes, which I don't believe that to be fair to the real.
00:07:09.640I don't like the word victims because, again, I don't look at you guys as victims necessarily.
00:07:16.260But it's the women who are being impacted.
00:07:19.520Therefore, I believe it's their voices who deserve to be heard.
00:07:22.180It's their names and their faces who deserve to be shown.
00:07:26.360And you mentioned the parents, too, which that's something that I saw when this was an issue that I faced.
00:07:32.900So many parents, moms who were in tears watching their daughters really be obliterated in a sport that they worked their whole life to achieve at.
00:07:56.500So I guess, you know, before I go to Kay and ask a few questions, why did you decide to speak up now?
00:08:03.480What was kind of that final straw for you?
00:08:06.480The final straw for me was when I started running the 400 and when my sister especially started showing interest in doing track because I'm an oldest sister.
00:08:18.600I'm the oldest of three and my younger sister now is a 400 runner for the middle school team.
00:08:24.260And so when I realized that she would have to potentially face this in the future, I was I was just not ready.
00:08:32.060I didn't want her to have to deal with this.
00:08:33.560So I decided to speak up and use my voice and just hopefully prevent this from happening to all of the younger female athletes that are going to have to come up and deal with something like this.
00:08:45.060Yeah, well, that's an incredible perspective.
00:08:46.700And your younger sister has a role model in you.
00:08:51.920Kay, can you just tell us about some of the policies that the state of Washington and I mean, there are several states at this point, but specifically the state of Washington, the policies they're enforcing that allows for this to to continue to happen?
00:09:06.520Well, Washington state has a policy, both with the athletic organization that runs these sports and at the state level of of organizing sports by gender identity rather than sex.
00:09:19.180And that's something that we've seen happen in a number of states across the country.
00:09:22.560There's been lots of litigation on this issue over the last five years, even.
00:09:26.180But now we're in a spot where we have a federal administration that's very concerned about this issue, as they should be.
00:09:32.520This is about equal opportunities for women in sports.
00:09:38.080All she's worked for, the benefits that she's getting from being part of a team, from working hard, from being able to show herself that she can achieve these things, cut seconds off of her time.
00:09:48.800And all that's taken away from her and her teammates.
00:09:51.280When you allow male students who have a larger heart, lungs, bigger muscles, better bone density, all these things that make them faster and better equipped in these sports, they're crushing the opportunities for these women to gain in this important activity.
00:10:08.760I bet when you were in grad school, you never imagined you would have to, you know, publicly declare in court settings, oftentimes, the physical differences between boys and girls.
00:10:22.080So what actions did you guys take to ultimately defend Soleil and girls across the state of Washington and really across the rest of the nation?
00:10:32.240Well, Alliance Defending Freedom has been involved in this issue for the last five years, bringing cases on this issue in Connecticut.
00:10:39.820So this is something that has been a priority for us.
00:10:42.080But seeing that this is now a priority for the federal administration, that gave us an opportunity to file what's called an OCR complaint.
00:10:49.080It's a way for us to bring Soleil's issue to the government to say, you need to investigate the policies in Washington and ensure that they are aligned with federal law, which they are not.
00:10:59.900And so we filed this letter with the federal administration.
00:11:05.700But this will open, hopefully, an investigation into the policies in Washington state that can ensure that all women in Washington get fair opportunities to compete in sports.
00:11:15.360Obviously, Donald Trump signed an executive order back in February.
00:11:22.420It was one of the most amazing experiences.
00:11:27.340So special because there were all these young girls, like I'm talking seven, eight-year-old girls surrounding him as he signed this.
00:11:34.100It was a really beautiful visual to see.
00:11:37.180But I don't think a lot of people, you know, you're common sense, everyday American, maybe they don't understand what this executive order necessarily means, especially in terms of longevity.
00:11:50.480So how is the state of Washington able to do this when there is federal law, Title IX, and when Donald Trump signed this executive order just a few months ago?
00:12:00.880Well, the critical law here is Title IX.
00:12:03.140It's the law that years and years ago set out women's sports as separate, allowing equal opportunities for women to gain in athletics.
00:12:11.380And it was an important law that was upheld separating sports by sex for years and years and years, until most recently.
00:12:17.880What happened with the executive order is that the president said, we're going to affirm Title IX.
00:12:23.560We're going to enforce Title IX the way that it was intended, to separate sports, to allow women to have equal opportunities in athletics.
00:12:31.540And by doing that, the order states out his policy and instructs his various agencies to begin investigating and enforcing Title IX in the way that it was intended.
00:12:42.640So coming to Washington State, what's happened is Washington State saw that executive order.
00:12:46.940They have policies that they arrange their sports based on gender identity rather than sex.
00:12:51.400And they said publicly, we're not going to change.
00:12:54.660We're going to continue to separate sports by gender identity, no matter what federal law says or what the government says.
00:13:01.120And that opens up the opportunity for the federal administration to come in and investigate and to try to bring Washington in line with federal law, which it should be.
00:13:09.800Absolutely. And we've seen pretty much everyone has seen the interaction between Governor Mills of Maine and Donald Trump and what she I think she believed to be this mic drop moment where she was like, I'll see you in court.
00:13:23.100Well, the Department of Justice ended up getting involved and now I think they've issued warnings to California, to other states as well.
00:13:31.400I know Minnesota was a priority of theirs. So it is so good that you guys are putting Washington.
00:13:36.300I know they're following along. I know they know what's going on.
00:13:38.680But to now give them an outlet to to really do something, it's just incredible.
00:13:44.680So so lay, once you filed this complaint, how has your school or your peers or or really your teammates like how have they responded to your involvement in this?
00:13:56.440Everyone is so supportive. My relay team, I'm a run on the four by one, four by two and four by four.
00:14:02.460All of us wear Title IX shirts. We are all very supportive, like the parents all have shirts that are Title IX, save women's sports.
00:14:11.800Everyone is so supportive of it. And I think just from watching one of our teammates have to go through the same thing last year and to now having someone that is going against it and saying this isn't right is just opening a door for them that they didn't know was there.
00:14:26.320And everyone is like following how everything's playing out and just they're so supportive.
00:14:32.460Yeah, that's incredible. And it's important to remember, like this isn't Texas or Tennessee or Florida.
00:14:39.360This is in Washington state, which is historically known to be a bastion of liberalism, if you will.
00:14:48.160So that's pretty remarkable to to feel that support and to have that sense of unity, especially among your teammates.
00:14:55.080That's that's that's pretty special. Do you feel like you're all's voices as women, as female athletes?
00:15:03.360Do you feel like you've been heard in this debate or do you feel largely ignored by those those policymakers or I guess state officials, both elected and unelected in the state of Washington?
00:15:16.300I feel like I'm using my voice as much as I can and whether or not people want to listen, that's on them.
00:15:25.120But I'm going to continue to use my voice to try and be heard as much as I can.
00:15:29.640And it's being heard by people who want to listen. And ultimately, those people are going to be the one that make the decision to help save women's sports.
00:15:37.580Yeah. Yeah. And now, as Kate mentioned, we have the ability to I think the previous four years, it really was like screaming into a void.
00:15:46.660You could talk about it all day long. But the reality, you know, being totally transparent here, there wasn't a whole lot you could do.
00:15:54.060Most of these these courts were not ruling in our favor.
00:15:58.960Of course, the Biden administration. I mean, they totally ignored us as women.
00:16:02.960And so now we have the ability. So, Kate, what can still be done federally as well as locally?
00:16:09.700And I guess maybe a better way to phrase it is like, what's best case scenario here?
00:16:14.000Is it the Department of Justice getting involved? Is it the Department of Education getting involved?
00:16:18.620Is this a case, some sort of Title IX case going all the way to the Supreme Court?
00:16:24.020I think any of those options would be better than where we're at.
00:16:28.980But having voices like Soleil's and yours really speaking out, that's continuing to move things forward.
00:16:36.900And you see this, I think Soleil's story is an example.
00:16:40.380You see this crossing political lines as people start to recognize the impact on women from these kinds of policies.
00:16:47.040With the federal government behind us at this point on this issue, having the Department of Justice or the Department of Education step in on something like this through the Office of Civil Rights or elsewhere, that's important.
00:16:59.560There are also a number of cases still bubbling up through the courts, including in Connecticut.
00:17:04.160There's been movement in Idaho, Minnesota, other states, those reaching a level where they're going to get court of appeals decisions or the Supreme Court laying in.
00:17:14.140And that could also be helpful. But I think the fastest approach here right now is what's going on with the federal government and their willingness to try to push states to follow federal law for the benefit of women.
00:17:27.060Yeah. Soleil, I mean, I really just have a couple more things for you.
00:17:31.920If you could speak to education and sports officials directly, what would your message be?
00:17:39.320I would say that they just need to recognize the fact that a man is a man and a woman is a woman.
00:17:46.720Men have the physical advantages over us. They have bigger hearts, like Kate said.
00:17:51.220They have more bone density. They don't have to take any testosterone suppressants.
00:17:57.460They just have an ultimate advantage and they're taking away the right that we have to compete in our sport.
00:18:04.000And girls deserve equal opportunities to be able to experience how it feels to win and how it feels to make a shot and a goal, how it feels to cross the finish line, how it feels to hit a home run.
00:18:15.560We all deserve that thrill of victory. And taking that away and taking away our right to Title IX, it was designed to provide women with equal opportunities.
00:18:24.900And if they can't recognize that we have every right to participate, then I don't know what to tell them.
00:18:31.100But we're going to continue to keep using our voices to be heard.
00:18:34.800Man, hearing you say that and understanding how the other side, they call this progressive.
00:18:42.240They say, you know, we're making progress. We're moving in the positive forward direction.
00:18:46.740But to hear what you just said, what they're doing is deeply regressive and utterly misogynistic.
00:18:54.880And the definition of sex-based discrimination, it is by no means progress, what is happening to you and your teammates and other girls across the country.
00:19:05.540So what's next? What's the next hurdle you guys have to face?
00:19:09.240No pun intended, I guess. Or your next competition. What's the next thing on the docket here for you guys?
00:19:18.260Well, in the legal case, we're waiting to hear back from the federal government.
00:19:21.940This takes some process for them to review complaints.
00:19:24.600But I know Soleil is also preparing for some upcoming races.
00:19:29.720Yeah, I have the state meet next week.
00:19:33.040We have a track meet this Friday, which is our district championships.
00:19:36.820And if we place top two, then we get to go to state.
00:19:40.040And we are hoping to take all three of our relays to state.
00:19:44.440And one of those relays would be raced against that male athlete from the school in Spokane.
00:19:51.320But ultimately, we're just trying to get through this meet.
00:19:54.400And whatever happens at state happens.
00:19:56.680And I think that there will be a lot of people there who are supportive if the time comes that we do have to run against him.
00:20:02.480And we know that everyone has our backs.
00:20:04.980And just trying to get through this as much as we can, that's all we can do.
00:20:10.660People definitely have your backs, not even just across the nation, across the world.
00:20:16.300I hope to see pictures of you and your relay and your Title IX shirts to be able to amplify and continue to spread the message.
00:20:24.560Last thing for you, and really for both of you, what's your message to those who say this isn't really an issue or that only a few women are actually being affected by this?
00:20:36.440Only a few men, a few boys are actually playing on the court or the field or the track with girls.
00:23:34.320It's heartbreaking being able to, of course, after the recording ends, just talk to her personally and directly for, you know, however many minutes.
00:23:43.380And to really hear her heart of how much she cares, how hard she works, and how all she wants is the bare minimum, equal treatment, equal opportunities.
00:23:55.400Crazy that young girls have to explain this.
00:23:58.580Anyways, you can check us out at youtube.com slash OutKick.
00:24:01.860That's where you'll find all things Games for Girls.