Female volleyball player injured by male opponent to testify before Congress

Payton McNabb, a former high schooler in North Carolina injured in a girls volleyball match by a boy on the opposing team, is scheduled to testify in Congress on Wednesday.

A leading voice alongside her friends Riley Gaines, Paula Scanlan and others with the Independent Women’s Forum, McNabb is on the witness list for the Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency in the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Unfair Play: Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports," as the hearing is entitled, is also to include competitive fencer Stephanie Turner; Damien Lehfeldt, chairman of the board for USA Fencing; and Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO at the National Women’s Law Center

Policy evaluation by governing bodies allowing men to participate in women’s sports and the contradiction of federal law, namely Title IX, is expected to be the role of the subcommittee led by Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

McNabb was injured during her senior year at Hiwassee Dam High. The ball spiked by a boy identifying as a girl on the other team left her unconscious on the court with partial paralysis and cognitive issues.

The three-sport athlete’s prep career ended that evening, she’s gone on to study at Western Carolina University, and she’s been an advocate for protection of women’s spaces.

President Donald Trump invited her to the signing of his executive order, Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, and to his joint address of Congress. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi invited McNabb to a women’s sports roundtable discussion.

She was with Gaines, arguably the leader of protecting women’s spaces, in Raleigh as lawmakers passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2023.

In part, McNabb plans to tell the panel, “I want you all to know that this issue is very real. I didn’t realize how big it was until it personally affected me. What we are talking about is reality and basic truth. Men have an inherent biological advantage over women when it comes to sports. This is undeniable.”

In a release from Independent Women, McNabb plans to testify about “what playing sports has meant to her and the benefits of high school athletics; the traumatic brain injury she suffered from a trans-identified male athlete; and her new purpose growing her advocacy footprint to protect women’s sports after an avoidable injury cost her a college career.”

She will also touch on biological realities; the importance of Trump’s executive order; and need for legislation in the 23 states yet to enact laws to protect women’s sports. North Carolina’s new law wiped out the allowance for case-by-case judgment from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.

“In high school,” McNabb said in the release, “I played volleyball, basketball and – my favorite sport – softball. I was excited at the prospect of playing softball in college. But that day never came. My athlete career was hindered and cut short because I was forced to compete against a male athlete on an opposing high school women’s volleyball team on Sept. 1, 2022.”

Turner, 31, took a knee rather than compete against Redmond Sullivan at USA Fencing’s Cherry Blossom Open at College Park, Md., on March 30. She said her choice was based on safety in the combat sport.

The referee issued a black card, meaning kicked out of the event. USA Fencing said she was disqualified for refusal to compete.

Sullivan was on the men’s team at Wagner College prior to joining the women’s team for 2024-25.