A dozen high school cross country runners found themselves on the front lines of the transgender athlete debate at a meet in Washington on Tuesday. The teenage girls from Camas High School in Camas, Washington, defiantly refused to compete on October 13 after discovering that they were being pitted against a biological male athlete. Logan Mihailoff, a junior at Camas High, switched from the boys' competition to the girls' midseason, competing in the male field as recently as September 5. The switch sparked outrage among parents and students with a large group of the female Camas runners deciding to take a stand. Almost half of the girls competing in Tuesday's race walked off the course in protest of the biological male's participation. When the horn blared, the transgender competitor and the remainder of the female runners took off but around 11 girls slowly walked past the starting line with their arms linked and into the nearby tree line, exiting the course and the race. Their bold move saw them sacrifice one of their high school competitions. However, their decision was supported by their parents, many of whom attended the race with signs calling to keep men out of women's sports. 'The more I heard about her friends wanting to do something, the more I heard about her team wanting to do something, we definitely were in support of that,' Kevin Burns, the father of one of the protesting girls, Holly, told OutKick. 'We told her, do what you think is best.' 'You hear about it, but you just never think it's going to be on your kid's small cross-country team,' Holly's mother Sarah added. Mihailoff has run in boys' races as recently as last month. They competed in the junior varsity boys' race at the Ultimook Race in Oregon, finishing 76th out of 301 runners on September 5, according to The Columbian. Just over a month later on October 10, Mihailoff finished the second-fastest member of the Camas High girls' team in the women's elite race at the Nike Hole In The Wall XC Invitational in Arlington. Mihailoff ran a personal best time of 18 minutes, 36.8 seconds, which saw them finish 39th in the race, which features elite high school athletes from across the Northwest. 'I don't see how it's OK to discriminate against my daughter and the daughters of everyone else that is trying to fairly compete,' Kevin Burns said. Kevin and Sarah said that they were challenged by security when they attempted to hold up the signs protesting against transgender athletes competing in sports. They also claimed that they faced backlash from a woman, who confronted them during the race. 'I had a lady that came up to me and said she was a psychiatric nurse and that I was a disgusting human for holding up this sign and that I was doing psychological damage to these children,' Sarah said. 'I told her that one day I'm gonna have to stand before my Lord and Savior and I'm gonna feel good about this.' The protest comes less than a month before Washington voters are set to head to the polls to cast their ballot on an initiative to ban transgender athletes from women's sports. The state will vote on Initiative 638 on November 3, which, if passed, would ban biological males from competing in girls' K-12 sports. It took hundreds of thousands of signatures from across Washington to get the measure on the ballot. And, despite being an overwhelmingly liberal state, there is optimism among activists that the initiative could pass. Tentative new local polling has reportedly shown that Washington voters will cast their ballots in favor of passing the ban. Polling conducted by Let's Go Washington, a conservative-backed political action committee that advocated for the proposed ban, earlier this month shows 56 percent of the vote going in favor of the ban in November, according to KUOW. #highschoolsports #highschool #camaswashington #crosscountry #transgender - @dailymailsportusa