Payton McNabb had dreams of playing sports at the collegiate level, but one volleyball match against a male claiming to be female ended that dream forever and left her with lifelong injuries.
Her mother, Pamela McNabb, wrote an opinion piece for Fox News on Friday about the fateful day, Sept. 1, 2022, her daughter’s high school volleyball team faced a rival team with a transgender player.
“My daughter, Payton, was struck in the head and neck by a spike from a transgender-identifying male on the opposing team, causing her to lose consciousness and lay in a fencing position on the gym floor,” she wrote.
Now, she has partial paralysis and other complications; her life will never be the same.
“We later found out she had suffered a traumatic brain injury, leaving her partially paralyzed on the right side of her body and unable to speak or see clearly,” Pamela McNabb wrote.
Payton’s mother wrote in heartbreaking detail about the injury and its effects.
The 17-year-old went from being a star athlete who wanted to play softball in college to suffering through basic mental and physical tasks.
“Seemingly overnight, Payton began to struggle with everything. She suffered from debilitating head and neck pain, couldn’t drive, and had to be assisted in school as she worked to relearn basic cognitive processes,” her mother wrote.
“When she would have moments of clarity, the fear in her eyes of what was happening to her mind and body was too much,” she continued. “She had gone from excelling at everything she ever did to struggling to brush her own hair.”
“All of her hopes and dreams, all of her hard work in the classroom and on sports teams, all of the sacrifices she made to chase her dream of playing softball past high school — all of it was gone.”
Payton sunk into a deep depression after the injury. When doctors advised her to try reentering softball and other sports, she was somewhat able to do that, but the partial paralysis on her right side makes it incredibly difficult and painful. She will never play at the same level.
“She fell a lot, played with tremendous amounts of physical pain, and she was visibly confused at times. There were a lot of tears and frustration, but she was determined to not have anything else taken from her,” her mother explained. “Her injury ended any chance of being able to play [softball] at the collegiate level, but Payton wasn’t willing to give it up entirely. … Her leg would tremble while she sat behind the plate as the team’s catcher, and I would sit behind her, watching as tears streamed down her face from the pain. She couldn’t steal bases anymore because her bad leg would fold up under her, and she could only slide with her gloves in her hands, so she had something to focus on.”
Pamela McNabb added, “She will have lifelong complications from this avoidable injury,” and pleaded with other parents to avoid subjecting their daughters to the dangers of playing sports against males.
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“We knew the biological male player would be competing against Payton’s team and, like most parents, disagreed with school officials’ decision to let him compete against young women,” she wrote. “But what we didn’t understand at the time was just how great of a risk the male’s presence on that court posed to our daughter’s safety.”
“Do not let my family’s experience become your own,” she warned. “Pull your child from the game.”
That is certainly sound advice from a parent who can now recount firsthand the dangers of men playing in women’s sports. Other parents should indeed take note.
But so should lawmakers across our country.
As Pamela McNabb lamented, there are still 24 states where males can legally compete against females in high school athletics, and countless other young women could be subjected to terrible injuries.
It is unconscionable that such insanity is still allowed. Payton McNabb is the proof.
“These policies endanger our girls’ safety and well-being,” her mother observed.
“If these states refuse to step up and protect young women from experiencing the harms Payton has suffered, parents must step up in their place.”
