School decided to compete to show ‘Christ’s love to the world’
A private Christian school in California won a girls’ basketball championship after handily winning a playoff against a team with a biological male player who didn’t play after the school decided to compete to show “Christ’s love to the world.”
Cornerstone Christian School, which operates as a K-12 school in Antioch, located in the East Bay Area, drew national attention after school principal Logon Heyer announced the Cougars’ varsity girls basketball team would compete in a playoff game last Saturday against San Francisco Waldorf Wolverines, despite the presence of a male trans-identified athlete on the opposing team.
In a letter to the school community shared with CP, Heyer said that while the school does not support the transgender movement, it seeks to embody the Christian principle of loving others, as taught in Matthew 22:39. “Engaging with others in a spirit of kindness and respect, even when we may disagree on certain matters, is an important part of showing Christ’s love to the world,” Heyer wrote.
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“We understand that this is a complex issue, but we are committed to educating our students with a biblical worldview, which means demonstrating to them what it looks like to be a follower of Christ, and really loving people who we disagree with,” he added. “It is our hope that this game can be an opportunity for sportsmanship, mutual respect, and more importantly a demonstration of the love of Christ in a tangible way.”
He encouraged parents and others attending the game to “cheer and love just like Jesus would, with compassion and grace, with a heart towards a world who desperately needs Him and focus on supporting our girls and demonstrating love.”
The player, identified as Henry Hanlon, reportedly did not attend the Wolverines’ playoff game against Cornerstone. The school did not provide a reason for Hanlon’s absence as the Cougars went on to win the game 56-30, ending the Wolverines’ season.
Hanlon is a four-year girls varsity player averaging over 20 points per game and has scored nearly triple the number of points of Zoe Rhoads, the Wolverines’ second-highest scorer, according to high school sports data source Max Preps.
In videos shared on social media, Hanlon is seen towering over both his teammates and opponents and scoring almost at will, including during last month’s win over Jewish Community High School.
Transgender male dominates GIRLS basketball match.
Henry Hanlon, who is a biological male, scored 29 points in San Francisco Waldorf’s 59-33 women’s basketball win over Jewish Community High School.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) February 20, 2025
Finishing with a 21-9 record, the Cougars won the North Coast Section Girls Basketball Championship with a 71-42 win over Round Valley on Wednesday.
While Cornerstone opted to compete, at least two teams have refused to play against the male athlete, including Stone Ridge Christian, which forfeited a volleyball playoff game against Waldorf in November, citing “God’s Word” which, the school said, “makes clear God wonderfully and immutably created each person as male or female.”
“Standing for Biblical truth means more than the outcome of a game,” the team wrote in a statement.
In addition to girls’ basketball, Hanlon also reportedly plays girls’ volleyball and girls’ soccer for the Wolverines.
Last month, Hanlon caught the attention of women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines, who wrote on X, “This is the third consecutive game where he’s scored more than 1/3 of the team’s points(.) The emperor wears no clothes”.
Male player, Henry Hanlon, scored 26 pts in girls high school basketball game last week in San Francisco
This is the third consecutive game where he’s scored more than 1/3 of the team’s points
The emperor wears no clothes pic.twitter.com/Gpwla6zZ1h
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) January 20, 2024
Several states continue to defy President Donald Trump’s executive order on women’s sports, including California and Maine, where a school district and the state’s Department of Education are under federal investigation.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Friday that it sent a letter to Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin announcing the Title IX investigation into the state agency after reports that Greely High School continues to let a male student compete as a girl.
Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” directed executive agencies to take “all appropriate action to protect all-female athletic opportunities,” promising to withdraw federal funding from educational institutions that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.
“Maine would have you believe that it has no choice in how it treats women and girls in athletics — that is, that it must follow its state laws and allow male athletes to compete against women and girls,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a Friday statement about the investigation.
