*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation.

A teenage trans athlete is fleeing the country with her mother after experiencing severe bullying and harassment by right-wing media, fellow athletes, and politicians.

11th grader Ada Gallagher currently runs on the girls’ track team at Portland, Oregon’s McDaniel High School. She first became part of the national debate over trans athletes in 2023 when she won the state championship in the 200-meter race. A report from that time said the crowd met her victory with a chorus of boos, a sentiment that quickly spread across the country as the anti-trans right got its hands on the story.

Gallagher, who now competes with a security guard by her side, has endured years of death threats and vile insults, and she has also been a focal point of conservative media outlets.

Most recently, a video of Gallagher winning a March 19 400-meter race in a landslide was shared widely among conservatives. She also won the 200-meter race at the same meet.

Prominent anti-trans activist Riley Gaines – who has built an entire career off of tying for 5th place with a trans athlete three years ago – shared the video on X and misgendered Gallagher, writing, “Does he have no shame? Do his PARENTS have no shame?”

Gallagher’s mother, Carolyn, was not able to celebrate her daughter’s win like any mother should, as she knew the hate it would bring. She told Oregon Live she thought, “I know the optics of this are going to be horrible.”

But she wished people understood that the meet consisted of a total of three schools and that neither of the other two had strong competitors in the race Gallagher won so easily. She also wished people knew that, despite what Fox News claimed, Gallagher did not set a season record in the 400-meter race and actually ran a massive five seconds slower than she did in the same event at state the previous year, where she got second place.

For as long as she could, Gallagher tried to rise above it all, to keep her head in the game and just do what she loves: run.

But it has finally become too much.

“When they call me a predator, that’s the worst one. I hate it so much,” Gallagher told Oregon Live.

Only six days after Gallagher’s victory in March, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights began investigating Portland Public Schools and the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA), alleging the organizations are violating Title IX by allowing trans athletes to participate in sports on the teams that align with their gender (OSAA policy states it “endeavors to allow students to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity while providing a fair and safe environment for all students”).

A statement from Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong in the wake of the lawsuit expressed a dedication to protecting vulnerable students.

“I stand firm in our legal responsibilities, and I deeply value every student’s right to be treated with dignity, safety, and respect. PPS is in full compliance with Oregon state law, which may differ from federal guidance. We are actively working with our legal and state partners to navigate this complex legal landscape.”

“While I am limited in what I can share at this time due to the sensitive nature of the matter and our duty to protect student privacy, I want to be clear: my commitment—and our district’s commitment—to doing what’s right for all students, especially those most vulnerable, remains unwavering.”

But Gallagher and her mother hope all the noise will quiet down once they leave for Canada, where Carolyn was born and raised, despite the fact that Gallagher is devastated to leave her team, her friends, and especially, her girlfriend.

As Oregon Live states, Gallagher “joined the track team last spring not because she believed she would win, not out of some desire to manipulate the system and compete where she could win, but because her friends urged her to. Because they wanted her there.”

Now the team captain, she says the team is “the only place where people really know me.”

“I think people think I want to be this spotlight for trans people,” she said. “Not at all. I just like running.”

While competing is what also leads her to endure all this hate, she said it all goes away during the 23 or so seconds she is running.

“You hear the feet around you hit the ground,” she said. “Senses are heightened. There’s nothing to think about, it’s just track.”