Oregon girls open up on 'traumatic' trans athlete experiences that pushed them to fight back

Oregon teens Lily Hammond, Maddie Eischen, Sophia Carpenter and Alexa Anderson told Fox News Digital about the experiences that drove them to speak out against trans athletes in girls' sports.

Oregon high school senior Alexa Anderson is now a budding conservative heroine, but she comes from a family of Democrats. 

When the Tigard High School track and field star refused to stand on the same podium as a trans athlete at the state championship on Saturday, alongside fellow medalist Reese Eckard, Anderson learned right away the treatment an act like that prompted from the political side her family traditionally aligned with. 

"When me and Reese stepped down there was definitely some confusion, there was definitely some anger and just a lot of people who didn't understand why were were doing this, and it was scary. Everyone was looking at us," Anderson told Fox News Digital. "There was a lot of people on and off the field. I heard shouts of them telling us to get out of the way." 

The backlash did not end on the field. 

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"There has also been a handful of people that just really don't understand that are reaching out and are calling me a bad person," she added. 

"When I received one of the first hate comments I kind of just brushed it off, I responded saying ‘thank you for sharing your opinion, I respect your opinion, this is mine and this is what I stood for’ but it didn't really bother me too much because I was prepared for it, I knew this was going to happen, and I have so many people behind me, supporting me and that number greatly outweighs the people who have been hateful toward me." 

Anderson was warned by friends, coaches and family about what would happen if she