Dem lawmaker responds to allegations staffer crumpled, threw out girls' letters lobbying for trans athlete ban
Nevada women and families rallied at the state capital building in Carson City on Tuesday to lobby lawmakers to pass a resolution that would keep trans athletes out of girls' sports.
Currently, two bills have been proposed to the state legislature to address the issue, but the Democrat majority has not indicated it will allow a hearing on the bills.
Two girls who were at the event and another witness allege that a staffer from Democratic Assemblymember Elaine Marzola's office crumpled up and threw away letters lobbying Marzola to support the bill. Marzola has denied the allegations.
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A Nevada middle school girl, 13-year-old daughter Ava Chavez, prepared a letter to hand to assemblymembers detailing her experience having to compete against a biological male in volleyball last year.
A copy of the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, showed Ava recounting the emotions she felt having to compete against the male opponent, while pleading for the lawmakers to consider passing one of the bills, SB112.
"When the ball is on the other side of the net, they have a chance to swing and we have a chance to block. This can be dangerous for us because if the blockers can't block the boy's hit, I could get dangerously hurt. This scares me because boys are naturally bigger, faster, stronger and have a higher vertical," the letter readers, later concluding with, "Please support SB112 to protect girls like me who love sports. Thank you for reading my letter!"
Chavez told Fox News Digital that she saw a staffer from Marzola's office take her letter, and those from other girls, and throw them away in the trash.
"When I walked in she took my paper between her fingers and she was like sliding it into the trash can," she said, adding that other girls then walked in and left their own letters on Marzola's desk.
"And then when I walked out, I thought I heard rustling papers again, and I was like ‘Oh she just threw out our papers again,'" she said.
Ava Chavez was joined by several other girls at the event, including 17-year-old Nevada girls' athlete Kendall Lewis.
Lewis has also played against a trans athlete in high school volleyball over the last two seasons, which prompted her to join the effort on Tuesday. However, Lewis also alleges she saw her letter crumpled and thrown away.
"As she took them from us, she kind of crumpled them a little bit, not completely like into a ball, but just kind of threw them away and just disregarded them," Lewis told Fox News Digital.
The girls who went to the state capitol were led by former University of Nevada volleyball player Sia Liilii, who has been living with the Chavez family over the last year.
Liilii told Fox News Digital what she witnessed.
"After hearing the rustling papers, I looked back and Kendall said ‘she just threw it away,'" Liilii said.
The allegations were first reported by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks in a post on X on Tuesday.
Marzola provided a statement to Fox News Digital denying the allegations and dismissing Joecks' initial report.
"The allegations against my staff and I are a blatant lie perpetrated by an unserious opinion columnist who wasn't even in the legislative building. My staff and I always treat everyone with the utmost respect and dignity. Because I was in meetings all afternoon, I didn't interact with Ms. Chavez (Ava's mother Annie Chavez) or her daughter, so they must be mistaken," the statement read.
On Wednesday, Joecks posted a screenshot on X of an email denying the allegations from fellow Nevada Democrat Assemblymember Steve Yeager, with a caption.
"In an email, [Yeager] claims what Annie Chavez told me isn't true, but he provides no evidence to back that assertion up. I'll let you decide who's more believable: the political powerful insider or mom who sounded genuinely shocked when she told me what she saw," the caption read.
Liilii has also addressed Marzola's response and denial.
"She wasn't in the site of what had happened and the fact that she wants to come after the character of girls who were just there to give their letters peacefully and give her letters saying why they love sports so much and why they want it to be single-sex spaces, it's kind of questionable, especially since she gets to make decisions for how we gets to play our her sports," Liilii said.
"I hope she looks into the other side as well and doesn't just come after our character."
Marzola has provided a follow-up response addressing the doubt of her denial by Liilii.
"As I said, the allegations are not true and both Ms. Chavez and Ms. Liilii are mistaken. Neither my staff nor I committed these actions," the statement read.
Liilii became a prominent figure in the national fight to combat trans inclusion in women's sports last fall, when she led her former teammates through a widely publicized dispute with their university over whether to forfeit a game against San Jose State University and its trans player, Blaire Fleming.
The Nevada players approached university administrators privately to express their desire to forfeit the match and join four other programs that refused to play SJSU. But Nevada did not honor that request and instead released a statement insisting it would play the match. Nevada also insisted its players would be allowed to skip the contest without facing discipline.
The team ultimately forfeited the day before the match was scheduled to be played, due to not having enough players. However, the university has said it had discussions with the players about potential "legal issues" that would emerge if the match were not played.
"University administrators met with the Nevada volleyball team and discussed scenarios of what could happen if they chose not to play. One of the scenarios that was discussed revolved around possible legal issues for violating the Nevada Constitution," read a statement that was previously provided exclusively to Fox News Digital by the University of Nevada, Reno.
Nevada's constitution was revised in 2022, when Democratic lawmakers voted to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment, which added gender identity to its list of diversity classifications that are protected under state law. As a result, girls athletes in the state like Chavez and Lewis have had to play against biological males in the time since then.
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