When fairness breaks

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Women’s sports for women.

You heard legal arguments yesterday. Today, a more personal story: the voice of a female athlete who had to go up against a man.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Payton McNabb was a three-sport high school athlete in North Carolina. Then in 2022 she was hit by a volleyball spiked by a male playing against her. It was devastating. She suffered whiplash, partial paralysis, vision trouble, cognitive issues, a concussion, and a brain bleed. What happened three years ago to her set her on a path of fighting for fairness in women’s sports.

REICHARD: Payton McNabb joins us now to talk about her story and why she is fighting to make sure it doesn't become the same story for other girls. Payton, thanks for visiting our D.C. studio.

PAYTON MCNABB: Absolutely, thank you for having me.

REICHARD: Well, take us back to the day you were injured. I know you've told this story a million times; what was your reaction and your teammates when you first saw that male athlete on the court?

MCNABB: I was trying to be as encouraging and motivating as I possibly could. I'd been playing against this guy for four years at this point, and of course, he didn't hit puberty until about junior year, and they tried to kind of hide it in the beginning, and then COVID happened, so it really wasn't the like top priority for us at the time, but by our senior year, it was no secret that there was a guy on the other side of the court. He was absolutely hammering the ball. And this wasn't like a great team or anything, so they were simply only winning because of him. 

So I'm one of the team captains, I'm a senior on the team, and we had a really young team that year, and they are just terrified to play because, like, we don't even think we're going to be able to receive it. We couldn't even run a play. We had to practice differently in order to prepare for this guy, and even our coach is like, just get a hand on it. Like you don't even have to return the ball. We don't even have to run a play. Just at least touch it, like that was our goal because it was so impossible. 

So they're shaking, they don't want to play. One of the girls, one of the freshman girls’ moms even asked me, “which one is he? I can't tell,” because he had been transitioning since he was really little, so it was kind of hard to tell from a distance. And I said, “Just wait until they start warming up, and then you'll know, like, exactly who it is.” And he gets up there, and he slams the ball. I turn around, and that girl's mom's like, jaw was on the floor. She could not believe that her 14 year old daughter is about to go out there against this 18 year old guy. Like how insane is that? It's so scary. So I was trying to be motivating. I, of course, was so livid, and my coach was mad, my administration was mad, and we just didn't know what to do. I'm from an area where I'd never seen that before, so we didn't know how to go about this. And, of course, now we know exactly what we would have done, but when you're in the moment, it's kind of hard to make those decisions.

REICHARD: Did you ever have a discussion with a coach? Why do we have to do this? Isn't it obvious?

MCNABB: Yes, we did, and she agreed wholeheartedly with us. She said, "Well, they're in our conference, and we have to play them." And if they were outside of our conference, it would have been so easy for us to just drop the game, which we would have done, but in our conference it's like a lot more difficult in order to do that. So of course now we're like, "we wouldn't have played" whatever, but after that happened to me, my school district voted on us not playing them anymore, until after he graduated, and that's exactly what happened.

REICHARD: Did you ever get an apology from that boy or from his family, or any kind of acknowledgement that what he did was wrong?

MCNABB: No, not at all. I got one text message. He only reached out to me one time, and it was basically like he's living rent free in my head. So I'm obsessed with him, I'm obsessed with the situation, like, that's how I felt about his comment towards me. He didn't say anything else, no apology whatsoever, like, just complete no remorse. I wasn't expecting an apology, but for you to go out of your way and say that? It's just like, I was the actual victim. And he said in those videos--I actually just released some videos with Megyn Kelly, like last month, and those were videos that he put out on the internet.

REICHARD: Well let’s listen to him mentioning one, in a whole list of things, that he says happened to him his senior year. Now to some, he may sound female, but he is a young man:

AUDIO: The girl you hit in the face goes to the North Carolina General Assembly and speaks about her experience. Trying to get anti-trans legislation passed. The whole situation of you hitting her in the face is brought back to life. Great. That is exactly what I needed in my senior year. Thank you, Payton.

MCNABB: And I'm like,"You think I wanted that for my senior year, either? Like, I couldn't even drive half of my senior year. You think I wanted that? So you're not the victim here." I'll continue to pray for him that he finds clarity and finds the Lord and finds truth, because that's what he truly, really needs.

REICHARD: That day when you were injured, what did the adults do? I mean, they should have been protecting the minors in the room, but they didn't. So what did they do? I'm talking about the audience as well as the adults in the game.

MCNABB: Exactly, yes, everyone was just in shock. After that happened to me, everyone got so mad, and that was, coincidentally, the only game that my parents couldn't make it to. So I think that was just like a blessing in disguise, cuz I don't know how they would have reacted to seeing that in real life. 

But, yeah, you know, just so much guilt and like regret came about it, I guess, like, I can only imagine how they felt. And I don't know, I think you're just at this point where you're like, "This is so insane. This happening everywhere else, this can't happen to me, this can't happen here. Like, there's no way. And like, this would ever, we'd ever allow this to happen?" And then it happened, and it happened to me. So it was just like, I feel bad for all of them, because there's really nothing we could have done in the moment, I feel like. Of course, now we know exactly what would have done, but it's kind of hard to do that at the time.

REICHARD: Yeah, nobody had experienced this before. Let's talk about your faith. How would you describe your faith, and has this experience grown it?

MCNABB: Absolutely, I mean, I would not have been able to do any of this without Him. I ask every single morning to please speak through me and give me the clarity and the knowledge to be able to keep standing up for this, because this is completely a walk in my faith. I didn't want to do any of this. I didn't think this was going to be in my life whatsoever. But the Lord had a bigger plan for me, and I wanted to follow the best I could. 

And I think it's been really hard, but just being able to have that trust in Him, I have the Creator of all, the King of Kings on my side, and so literally, "whom shall I fear?" Genuinely, I do not fear anyone, because I know that I'm protected and He wouldn't bring me to it if He couldn't bring me through it. And He's in every single step in my walk with me. And if I didn't have that, I wouldn't be able to do this the way I do. And that's what always makes me wonder, how, like the people that don't have that relationship with Him, I don't know how you're doing it, because He's in every single walk with me, and I couldn't be more thankful to have such a gracious Father.

REICHARD: I love it, I love it. He brings you to it because He can bring you through it.

Payton McNabb is a former high school volleyball player who now advocates on behalf of fairness in women's sports. Payton, thank you so much for joining us, and God bless.

MCNABB: Thank you so much, God bless you.

REICHARD: Payton and I continued our conversation and we'll air the rest of it this weekend. We talked about the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision for girls and women and much more besides. Be sure to listen Saturday, on The World and Everything in It podcast feed.

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