Newsom signs youth sports equity bill amid ongoing trans athlete debate

Governor of California Gavin Newsom He signed a bill into law Monday approving a study on potential inequities in youth sports, including “race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income, or geographic location.”

Youth sports for all Law, AB749It calls for a committee to conduct “an assessment of the need and potential for a central entity to improve access and participation in sports for all youth, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income, or geographic location, that addresses issues related to youth sports.”

Issues included include “how to promote a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for youth sports.”

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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office is doubling down amid controversy over transgender athlete AB Hernandez in the San Jurupa Valley School District. (Mario Tama)

The law also creates a fund in the state treasury that the Authority is responsible for spending to cover the costs of its research.

The California Assembly’s vote to pass AB749 comes months after it, and its Democratic majority, voted to block two bills that would have banned biological males from girls’ sports on April 1. Every Democrat at the time voted against it.

Now, the new law comes as the state is embroiled in a divisive culture war over transgender athletes in girls’ sports. The US Department of Justice has sued state school agencies over policies that enable biological males to compete in girls’ sports, and 17 school districts have now issued a resolution opposing the policies.

California was the largest state to challenge President Donald Trump’s “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, joining Democratic strongholds such as Minnesota, Maine and Illinois in supporting state laws to protect transgender inclusion. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has allowed transgender athletes to compete in girls’ high school sports since 2014, when state law AB 1266 was enacted.

As a result, the 17 school boards were eager to speak out against the state’s Democratic leaders and express their support for protecting girls’ sports.

The Oakdale Joint Unified School District became the latest district in California to adopt this type of Title IX decision on Monday, when it passed unanimously among district trustees. Oakdale Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees Chairman Clayton Schember led the initiative.

“As chairman, I brought this resolution because to me it’s just common sense. There’s clearly a biological difference between boys and girls and that’s never more evident than on the field,” Schember told Fox News Digital. “All we ask is for CIF to stand up for what is right and stand up for its protections by ensuring fairness in girls’ sports. Tonight, I encourage all California school boards to do the same and fight not just for our girls, but side by side.”

Earlier in October, the state’s largest high school district by enrollment and floor area passed a similar resolution. The Kern High School District regularly enrolls more than 40,000 students and employs more than 1,700 employees annually across its 31 schools, becoming the 16th district to do so on Oct. 6. Kern High School District (KHSD) trustee Derek Tessinger told Fox News Digital that he and his classmates had to witness a Christian. School confiscation to a school in her district about a trans athlete last month.

Inside Gavin Newsom’s transgender volleyball crisis

Bakersfield Christian lost its freshman/sophomore game to Ridgeview High School in the last week of September, explaining that “as a school grounded in the authority of Scripture, we affirm the biblical view that sex is determined by God at conception.”

“People try to say, ‘It only affects a small number of people,’ but there were probably 30 girls who played volleyball and dreamed their whole lives, and they couldn’t play,” Tessinger said.

Resistance to the participation of trans athletes is believed to have led to other diversity-level volleyball seizures across the state dating back to last year.

This season, the Jurupa Valley High School girls volleyball team saw 10 regular season matches taken from its schedule, Fox News Digital previously reported. The team is currently embroiled in a national controversy after two of its top players filed a lawsuit against the Jurupa Unified School District (JUSD), citing their experience with a trans athlete.

Last season, the girls’ volleyball team at Northern California Christian High School, Stone Ridge Christian, lost a playoff to San Francisco Waldorf, which had a transgender sports team.

Newsom’s office Previously presented A statement to Fox News Digital defers responsibility for the situation to the CIF, CDE and the state legislature.

“The CIF is an independent nonprofit organization that governs high school sports. The California Department of Education is a separate constitutional office. Neither is subject to the governor’s authority. The CIF and CDE have said they follow existing state law — one that was passed in 2013 and signed by Governor Jerry Brown (not Newsom) and is consistent with 21 other states. For the law to change, the legislature would need to send a bill to Governor. But they didn’t do that.”

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A Bipartisan poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that a majority of Californians oppose biologically trans athletes competing in women’s sports.

This number included more than 70% of School parents in the country.

“Most Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match the sex assigned to them at birth,” the poll stated.

“A supermajority of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with. A supermajority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement.”

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