Jaylin Liu, sibling of two-time Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu, competes in girls' track, basketball and ultimate frisbee in the Bay Area. Women's sports groups have objected; the family has not commented.
A California high school athlete has become the newest flashpoint in the long-running fight over transgender participation in girls' sports — this time because of a famous last name.
Jaylin Liu, a transgender student-athlete and the sibling of Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu, competes in track and field, girls' varsity basketball and ultimate frisbee across Albany High School and El Cerrito High School in the East Bay, according to reporting first published by Reduxx and picked up more widely this week.
The track results are what drew attention. Liu has won the 200-meter and 400-meter girls' events at every Albany High meet entered this season, took first at the Tri-County Athletic League Finals in May, and won gold in the 200 meters at the 2025 Tri-County Athletic League Frosh-Soph Championship after eight first-place finishes across the 2025 season.
Groups that campaign against transgender inclusion in women's categories have seized on the family connection. Marshi Smith of the Independent Council on Women's Sports argued that Alysa Liu's medals represent the developmental pathway that female athletes depend on, and that her sibling's participation undercuts it.
A representative for HeCheated, which maintains a database of transgender athletes competing in women's events, made a narrower argument: that eligibility rules which leave the question to individual athletes put families in an impossible position, and that governing bodies rather than teenagers should carry the decision.
California has permitted students to compete consistent with their gender identity since a 2013 state law, and the California Interscholastic Federation has resisted federal pressure to change course. That has put the state repeatedly at odds with the Trump administration, which has made restricting transgender participation in girls' sports a priority and has threatened funding over it.
Alysa Liu, now at UCLA, won two golds at the 2026 Winter Games in the women's singles and team events. She has offered mild criticism of the administration in past interviews, telling KARE 11 that she pays attention to what the country is doing and thinks it matters to acknowledge the government's faults. She has not commented on her sibling.
Other athletes have been more direct in the other direction. WNBA guard Sophie Cunningham has publicly backed eligibility restrictions in women's sport.
Neither the Liu family nor either school district has issued a statement.