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Former Utah State volleyball star Kaylie Ray became a viral folk hero in the “save women’s sports” movement after sparring with Arizona Sen. Catherine Miranda.
Ray shared her experience enduring the San Jose State volleyball scandal and leading a team loss in protest of a male athlete at a state education hearing Tuesday as she lobbied for a bill that would provide protections for girls and women’s sports in Arizona.
Miranda responded by commenting on Ray’s body before asking, “so how competitive do you think you really are?”
Things did not go well with Ray, during or after the hearing.
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“How could you look me in the eye and ask me if I’m competitive. Obviously I’m standing in front of you fighting for something right now. I don’t know what part of it isn’t competitive for you. But if you want to go toe-to-toe, we can go toe-to-toe,” Ray told Pakinomist Digital.
Ray darted back into the chamber and repeated her point in the same tone she began with. But she had to make an effort to keep calm.
“At the moment I was trying to maintain the professionalism, we’re in a professional environment. I was just trying to be respectful and polite,” she said. “But inside I was smoking.” Ray even had to call his parents after the hearing to vent.
When Miranda initially began speaking to Ray, the senator said, “I mean, you look pretty healthy… You look very fit and strong.”
Ray didn’t even know what to find out.
“When she started saying those words, all I could think was, ‘where could she possibly be going with this?’ she said. “It was clear to me as she continued to speak that for some reason my physical appearance or stature should have some kind of impact on how competitive I am with men. So I was definitely thrown off guard.”
Miranda and her office have not issued a statement about the incident or the backlash. Pakinomist Digital has reached out to Miranda’s office multiple times for a response.
“They tend to save their stories and run when they realize they’ve lost the plot a little bit. I’m just reminded that common sense isn’t that common here. And I’m not sure what statement she can make that will paint her in a good light,” Ray said. “It wasn’t a logical argument in the least.”
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During Miranda’s response, she cited her own experience competing with “men.”
“It’s a sports mentality when you grow up and how much competition you want to take on. So it’s not just a golden ball for a community of sports players, it’s the individual person on how competitive you want to be. So you grew up one way. I grew up another way. I would have taken on a man in a heartbeat. I’ve played on a man, I was the only one I could have been on, sometimes in sports. that,” Miranda said.
At no point in Miranda’s response did she ever use the word “transgender” or even “male” or “female.” She simply referred to male opponents as “men”.
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According to a post from 2017 in Spanish engineering and technologyMiranda has previously talked about her experience playing sports with her brother.
“Sports was my life. There were four girls and one boy in my family. My brother made me his ‘little brother’ so he could have someone to play sports with. I was a 100% tomboy,” claiming she was the only girl who played in a local little league, the website reported.
Ray says she’s also had brothers and competed against them casually, but doesn’t think the experience is applicable to high-level sports, especially at the Division I NCAA level.
“I have brothers too. I know what it’s like to grow up competing with boys. But around the time puberty hit, there was a drastic difference,” Ray said.
“I played volleyball from the age of eight, and in high school my brother, my older brother… my mom got him to try volleyball.”
Ray said she refused to practice at all with her brother and his male teammates at that level.
“It was dangerous,” she said. “It’s stupid that I had to explain that to her.”
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Ray said she would accept an apology if Miranda offered one.
“I think if she were to give me a genuine apology, I would accept it. Obviously, she’s coming from a place of ignorance,” Ray said. “I would definitely need to see some action on her part to show that she understands and that she acknowledges the truth, the fundamental truth.”
