Sacramento, California – California legislators will not change the state policies that allow transgender and adolescents to play in sports teams consisting of their gender identities in the middle of the heated debates nationwide on the participation of trans young people in athletics.
Democratic legislators on the Committee of Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism of the State Assembly rejected two proposals by Republican legislators on Tuesday after hours of debate and passionate comments.
A bill would have required that the California Interscholastic Federation, the government body for high school sports, adopts rules that prohibit students whose sex was assigned to men at birth participating in a girl’s school sports team. The other would have reversed a 2013 law that allows students to participate in school segregated by sex, including sports teams, and use baths and other facilities that are aligned with their gender identity. It would have applied to K-12 and university students.
The audience occurred one day after the transgender day of visibility, and weeks after Democratic governor Gavin Newsom angered his political allies when he suggested in his podcast that it is unfair that transgender athletes participated in the girls’ sports.
The Chris Ward Democratic Assembly, the president of the Committee directed by the Legislative Caucus LGBTQ, said the bills were part of a broader attack against the rights of transgender youth. He said that they could also be invasive with the cisgene girls who could be asked to prove their sex.
“I don’t think anyone should be a gender vigilant to women and girls,” Ward said.
But the bill of the Republican Assembly, who was the author of the bill to reverse the 2013 law, said the proposal was on justice.
“Biology matters,” he said. “Sports are one of the places where that reality is more obvious.”
Taylor Starling, an athlete student in Riverside who says that a Trans corridor took its place in the Cross Country team of his high school, said a prohibition would help ensure that female athletes are treated fairly.
“Why are girls tell us that we must sit and shut up while boys are unjustly advanced in life?” She said.
But the defenders of LGBTQ and the parents of transgender children urged legislators to support trans children, in sports and beyond.
Cati Johnson, mother of a transgender girl in high school, said it was important to defend the rights and protections of trans children, such as the ability to use a bath that aligns with her gender identity.
“The prohibition of facilities really sends the message that it is not welcome as their real me,” Johnson said about his daughter. “And that’s not right.”
There are more than 49,000 trans young people between 13 and 17 years in California, according to an estimate of the Williams Institute, a group of the UCLA Law Faculty that investigates LGBTQ problems.
“While we know about some high profile stories of trans girls who play in teams, we are not seeing evidence that their participation is unfair or harmful,” said Elana Redfield, director of Federal Policies of the group. “Mainly, these laws seem to be motivated by anti-transgender bias.”
At least 24 states have laws in books that prohibit transgender women and girls to participate in certain sports competitions of women or girls. The judges have temporarily blocked the prohibitions in Arizona, Idaho and Utah. In New Hampshire and West Virginia, students who sued these states for prohibitions were allowed to compete. At the federal level, President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month aimed at prohibiting transgender athletes participating in sports of girls and women.
Some states have also imposed prohibitions on gender affirmation care and demanded schools to share the gender identity of students with parents without students’ consent.
Essayli and other proposals proposals referred several times to Newsom’s comments. Later, the governor told Los Angeles Times that he had deliberate on the subject for years, and that he stayed with his comments.
“I know that many people hurt. But respectfully, I just don’t agree with those on the other side of this,” he said.
Newsom has not directly requested a reversal of the existing state law and will not have to weigh after the death of the bills.
The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, sent a letter to Newsom last week, saying that her comments about her podcast caught her attention and requesting her to clarify her position.
“Take a position on your convictions,” he wrote. “Be clear about the damage of gender confusion. Protect female spaces. Do not encourage children to seek permanent medical interventions for their sex. Inform parents.”
The United States Department of Education also announced an investigation last week in the State’s Department of Education on a law that prohibits school districts that demand that teachers and staff notify parents if a student changes their gender identity in school.
