As California continues to defy President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from girls sports, residents across the state are standing up to pressure officials to comply.
The California Interscholastic Federation, which is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over potential Title IX violations, had its meeting Thursday crashed by protesters advocating for the protection of girls and women in sports.
Multiple protesters spoke to CIF officials at the meeting, pleading with them to ban trans athletes from girls sports, citing their own experiences.
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One of those speakers was St. Francis High School track and cross-country student-athlete Jordan Brace, who fears potential injuries from competing against a biological male.
“Allowing a biological male to compete against a female athlete that does not have the same kind of build or physical abilities is completely unfair and unsafe for women, and that can lead to so, so, so many injuries,” Brace said.
“How many more injuries, which are sometimes permanent, will it take for everyone to realize how important it is for women to feel safe and for young girls to feel like they have fair competition.”
Transgender athlete supporter Kyle Harp, left, of Riverside holds the progress pride flag as “Save Girls Sports” supporters Lori Lopez and her dad, Pete Pickering, both of Riverside, listen to debate outside a Riverside Unified School District meeting Dec. 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Former high school volleyball player Payton McNabb is a female athlete who says she sustained permanent injuries from a trans opponent. McNabb says she sustained long-term physical and mental injuries in 2022 when she was spiked in the face by a transgender athlete allowed to compete on a girls team because of a policy put in place by North Carolina’s high school athletic association.
The United Nations released study findings saying that nearly 900 biological females have fallen short of victories because they have been defeated by transgender athletes.
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The study, “Violence against women and girls in sports,” said more than 600 athletes did not medal in more than 400 competitions in 29 different sports, totaling over 890 medals, according to information obtained up to March 30, 2024.
“I want to know that I’m facing … someone who’s the same gender as me,” Brace said. “That I’m not being beat by someone in a race that has more physical capabilities than me, that’s naturally going to be faster than me, more muscular. I don’t think that anyone, anywhere, any young women, should have to deal with that, should have to fear that they aren’t safe or that they are being discriminated against in their sport.
“This is a matter of women’s safety.”
California mother Riece Morris, who has five children who compete for schools in the state, implored CIF officials to “do the right thing,” while expressing her belief the officials have “good intentions.”
“Good intentions do not make good policy. Good intentions do not absolve you from being complicit in robbing the girls of California of fair competition and single-sex privacy,” Morris said.
“Sacrificing girls sports by admitting boys was never a good idea. It was never going to last. So, I’m asking you to read the room, read the data and do the right thing. Do not let your legacy be that you had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing for girls after everyone else. Please stand up now and do the right thing.”
California has allowed trans athletes to compete in girls’ sports since 2014, and the policy has resulted in multiple controversies over the last year alone.
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Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, is embroiled in one of the most contentious disputes on the issue.
A Dec. 19 Riverside Unified School District meeting included a parade of parents berating the board for allowing a trans athlete on the Martin Luther King girls cross-country team. A lawsuit filed by two girls on the team alleges their “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts in protest of that player were compared to swastikas.
The father of a girl who lost her varsity spot to the trans athlete previously told Fox News Digital his daughter and other girls at the school were told “transgenders have more rights than cisgender[s]” by school administrators when they protested the athlete’s participation.
Stone Ridge Christian High School’s girls volleyball team was scheduled to face San Francisco Waldorf in the Northern California Division 6 tournament but forfeited just before the match over the presence of a trans athlete on the team.
Protesters gather outside the California Interscholastic Federation offices to advocate for the protection of female athletes against transgender athletes. (Courtesy of Beth Bourne)
A transgender volleyball player was allegedly booed and harassed at an Oct. 12 match between Notre Dame Belmont in Belmont, California, against Half Moon Bay High School, according to ABC 7. Half Moon Bay rostered the transgender athlete.
The state continues to allow transgender athletes in girls sports at the risk of losing federal funding by defying Trump’s executive order, and Gov. Gavin Newsom recently admitted trans athletes competing with girls is “deeply unfair.”
But Newsom also won’t take a decisive stand opposing transgender inclusion, arguing transgender people are “poor people” who are “more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression.”
California state lawmakers have introduced two bills to block trans athletes from competing in girls sports.
California Assemblyman Bill Essayli introduced one such bill Feb. 14, while fellow Assembly member Kate Sanchez announced Jan. 7 she is introducing a bill to ban trans athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports.
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