‘It Happened to Me for a Reason’: Female Athlete Injured by Male Competitor to Be Honored by Trump

After a biological male volleyball player injured Payton McNabb, robbing her of the chance to play collegiate sports, she decided to dedicate herself to protecting other women from a similar fate.

Two years later, McNabb will be one of President Donald Trump’s guests at Tuesday night’s joint address to Congress to highlight his executive order withholding federal funding from schools that continue to allow biological males to compete against females.

“It really just calls out how important he really sees this issue, and he sees it for what it is,” McNabb, now 19, told The Daily Signal. “Getting to be there is just an incredible honor. It’s so surreal, and I just genuinely can’t believe it, but I’m so thankful that we have a president that is willing to do that.”

McNabb also visited Washington, D.C., in early February to attend Trump’s signing of an executive order protecting women’s sports.

During McNabb’s senior year of high school, a boy who identified as a transgender girl spiked a volleyball in her face at an estimated 65 mph, briefly knocking her unconscious. McNabb, then 17, was quickly diagnosed with a brain bleed, a concussion, and permanent whiplash.

She has since suffered from partial paralysis, vision impairment, cognitive issues, headaches and balance issues. The former three-sport athlete’s plans of playing college softball were destroyed, as her doctor told her she should never play a sport again.

Close to 800 female athletes have been deprived of 1,121 awards in 545 competitions across 43 different sports by transgender competitors, according to the website SheWon.org, which tracks this issue.

“Thankfully, I’ve gotten a lot better since then,” McNabb said, “but the doctors don’t know for sure if I’ll ever be back to the same way I was before.”

The male who injured McNabb never apologized to her. The last time she heard from him was a hateful message sent in response to one of her public testimonies about the dangers of men playing women’s sports.

After she was rushed to the hospital amid that fateful game, the opposing team didn’t even bench the male.

“After I got out, they had to put the freshman setter in for me, and she was shaking, like genuinely so scared, on the verge of tears, having to go in because, of course, they didn’t take him out because he was the only reason they were winning any games,” McNabb said. “So, for them to see, you know, their team captain and senior on their team get completely knocked out, and then they have to go in and finish the game. I feel so bad to this day that they had to do that, but they refused to take him out.”

McNabb’s fight for women’s spaces has cost her more than her health. She was forced to move home from Western Carolina University and take online courses because she challenged a biological male using the women’s restrooms.

“There was a man in the bathroom with me, and I just asked him why he was in there,” she said, “and because of that, I was under investigation by my university for several months.”

“I was forced to move home because people were doxing me and finding out where I lived and did not want me on that campus,” she said. “So, because of all of this, I was already kind of a target because of the sports advocacy, but now because of the bathroom thing, it’s really just forced me to come home and do school from online.”

McNabb believes the Lord has a plan to use her injury for good. In addition to being a sophomore in college, McNabb is an Independent Women’s Forum ambassador, through which she advocates for female-only spaces.

“I think it happened to me for a reason, so that’s why I’ve been trying to really get my story out there,” she said.

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