Transgender athlete Aiden Gallagher sparks debate after dominating Oregon girls' track

A transgender athlete has caused controversy by winning a girls' track and field event at a high school in Oregon, USA, by a wide margin.

On the 21st (local time), the United Kingdom's Daily Mail reported that Aiden Gallagher, a transgender athlete from McDaniel High School in Portland, Oregon, won both the girls' league 200m and 400m events on the 19th.

Gallagher won the 400m race with a season record of 57.62 seconds, crossing the finish line approximately 10 seconds faster than the second-place finisher, who completed the race in 1 minute 05 seconds. In the 200m event, Gallagher was more than 1.5 seconds ahead of the second-place athlete with a time of 25.76 seconds.

Gallagher previously won both the girls' 200m and 400m track events at the 2024 6A-1 Portland School District Championship League.

As footage of Gallagher's races spread through social media (SNS), a debate erupted among netizens concerning the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports.

Former swimmer Riley Gaines criticized on her X (formerly Twitter), saying, "Another day, another man dominating women's sports."

She went on to say, "Gallagher set a season record and won by over 7 seconds against the fastest female athlete. Isn’t that embarrassing?" and asked, "Aren't his parents embarrassed?" She also tagged the account of former Attorney General Pamela Bondi from the Trump administration in her post.

Previously, on February 5th, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, signed an executive order titled 'Exclusion of Mankind from Women's Sports.' The order states that "over the past few years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to participate in women's sports," and it describes this as "unfair and dangerous for women and girls, depriving them of equal opportunities to participate in competitive sports and demonstrate their exceptional abilities."