After allegedly choking her female cheerleader teammate, a transgender cheerleader was expelled from a Texas cheerleading camp.
“Well, guys I’m officially retired as a cheerleader as of last night at 5:30 AM. A girl on the team was being very disrespectful and told me I am a MAN with a PENIS and that [guys] should not be on the team,” the cheerleader, Averie Chanel Medlock, wrote on Facebook last week. “I stood up for myself and she called her mom and dad because she was scared because I [stood] up for myself. Her father said ‘she still has testosterone and a penis and I will kill anyone who comes after my daughter.’”
According to team members’ Facebook posts, the incident occurred at Ranger College. Police responded to a dispute among the members of the team. Medlock claims that Medlock made racist and transphobic remarks to a teammate before the altercation. Cell phone video showed other cheerleaders hiding from Medlock in a room.
Medlock’s father was also called by his daughter to the scene. He has been pushing for CCTV and body camera footage to be released by police.
Mike Jones, the father of Mike Jones wrote on Facebook, “I ask what you would do when you received a call at 1 o’clock in the morning by your daughter stating that they had locked themselves in a room with other girls.” “I never said anything about your race or gender at any time.”
Medlock claims that the physical confrontation between Medlock and the other cheerleader was a joke. However, police officers on the scene issued the former cheerleader an assault citation and removed Medlock from campus.
The incident comes as debate continues to rage about transgender participation in female athletics, most recently in the case of University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas.
Thomas was a member of the school’s male swimming team from 2017 to 2020. However, he switched to competing with the females in the 2021 season. Thomas was the first transgender athlete ever to win an NCAA Division 1 national championship. He has been at the forefront of the debate about transgender participation.
The controversy has led to 18 states passing legislation that bans or limits transgender participation to the athlete’s birth sex.