NEWNow you can listen to Pak Gazette articles!
The conflict over biological males in women’s sports in California was back in the national spotlight over the weekend. The flames of debate were fanned by a large-scale protest at a state high school sports meet, and then a controversial result at a girls’ track meet the next day.
The state has become the largest epicenter of the problem in the country and the target of a lawsuit from the United States Department of Justice for allegedly violating Title IX over its eligibility policies for transgender people.
Internally, many of the state’s residents have continued to disagree with the state over those policies. That disagreement came to a head Friday when dozens of athletes and their families demonstrated outside a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) board meeting in Long Beach to protest.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON PakGazette.Com
Save Girls Sports activists demonstrate outside a CIF board meeting in Long Beach, California, on Friday, February 6, 2026. (Courtesy of Sofía Lorey)
California Family Council Outreach Director Sophia Lorey told Pak Gazette Digital that it was their largest rally yet, as they have held several in recent years.
Local California girls who have been affected by male competitors in their sports took to the podium to speak out against the CIF for not changing their policies. A total of 16 speakers spoke at the rally, including high school athletes, family members, politicians and activists.
Many of the speeches have since gone viral.
Former Jurupa Valley High School student-athlete Hadeel Hazameh had to graduate early after speaking out in the fall against a trans teammate on her track and volleyball team.
Arroyo Grande High School student-athlete Celeste Duyst recalled an alleged experience in which a biological trans male athlete watched her and other girls change in the locker room.
California Republican state assembly members Kate Sanchez and David Tangipa also showed up to give speeches in support of the girls.
Meanwhile, Democratic state Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal also appeared to film a Facebook video mocking protesters, claiming that the Republicans present “don’t really care about women.”
“We all know they don’t really care about women,” Lowenthal said.
Within the meeting, protesters on both sides of the issue spoke emotionally about the issue. But Lorey told Pak Gazette Digital that council members at no point addressed the issue of protecting women’s sports, not even making eye contact with speakers.
Singer and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Tish Hyman gave a boisterous speech condemning CIF board members.
“Martin Luther King did not march so that these trans people, or whatever they are, can use our civil rights to sell trans drugs to children!” Hyman shouted.
Crean Lutheran High School student Reese Hogan went viral last spring when she climbed to first place on a medal podium at a CIF postseason competition, just after the trans athlete who finished above her got off. Hogan spoke at the meeting about having to repeatedly compete against the male athlete.
“On May 4, 2024, May 10, 2025, May 17, 2025, May 30, 2025, and January 31, 2026, I competed in meets where I lost to a male athlete competing in women’s athletics. These are not isolated incidents, they are repeated moments in which female athletes were directly affected by policies that ignore reality,” Hogan said.
Speakers supporting trans athletes in women’s sports, including a local trans student, also gave speeches to council members, which Lorey said went unheeded.
‘HORRIBLE’ MOMENTS EXPOSED FOR UNR VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS WHEN THEY WERE ACCOMPANIED INTO SJSU TITLE IX SCANDAL
Taylor Starling speaks at a “Save Girls Sports” rally in California (Courtesy of the California Family Council)
“This national approach only brings extreme scrutiny and harm to these students,” the trans student said. “I myself was the subject of extreme protests, sometimes hundreds of students protested against me.”
ACLU of Southern California attorney Kristen Burzynski argued at the meeting that “sports should be for all kids.”
“This is not about justice. This is not about protecting girls. This is about making life harder for young people who are already being pushed to the margins,” Burzynski said. “Transgender students aren’t trying to cheat or steal trophies. They just want to play with their friends.”
The day after the meet, a prominent transgender athlete from Jurupa Valley High School won first place in the women’s triple jump at the VS California Winter Championships. The athlete also took second place in the women’s long jump.
Pak Gazette Digital is not revealing the name of the trans athlete in this specific story at the request of the athlete’s mother when we reached out for comment. However, the mother and the athlete have previously spoken publicly and the athlete’s name is widely disseminated and known.
The news of the trans athlete’s victory spread quickly on social networks.
Activists across the country have spoken out to further condemn California leaders for allowing such incidents to occur.
New York Times bestselling author Dr. Naomi Wolfe shared news of the incident on X, writing, “I can’t take this anymore.”
Great Britain’s Olympic medalist Sharron Davies wrote in response to the news on
Former American gymnast and XX-XY Athletics co-founder Jennifer Sey wrote: “How many girls has this guy knocked off the podium?”
Pak Gazette Digital has reached out to CIF and Jurupa Unified School District for comment.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a podcast conversation with Charlie Kirk last March that he believes men competing in women’s sports is “deeply unfair,” but he has taken no action or even any verbal initiative to address the situation.
In September, Newsom’s office provided a statement to Pak Gazette Digital in response to complaints from athletes and parents, suggesting that responsibility lies with the CIF, CDE and the state legislature, but not him.
“CIF is an independent nonprofit organization that governs high school sports. The California Department of Education is a separate constitutional office. Neither is under the authority of the Governor. CIF and CDE have stated that they follow existing state law, a law that was passed in 2013 and signed by Governor Jerry Brown (not Newsom) and in line with 21 other states. For the law to change, the legislature would need to send a bill to the Governor. They have not done so,” the statement reads.
On April 1, the California state legislature blocked two bills that would reverse the current law that allows men to participate in women’s sports.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is scheduled to release his next memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery,” on February 24, 2026. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
All Democrats voted against it, with Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur arguing that one of the bills “really reminds me of what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. We are moving toward autocracy in this country. In Nazi Germany, transgender people were persecuted and excluded from public life.”
Zbur said this in the presence of a descendant of a Holocaust survivor, who had to excuse herself from the camera, according to Sánchez.
“She got up and left because she was very upset with the comparison,” Sánchez told Pak Gazette Digital.
Newsom did not make any public statements at the time encouraging any of his fellow Democrats to support the bill. At the time, Newsom had already made his first public statements questioning the “fairness” of trans athletes in women’s and girls’ sports, in the first episode of his podcast after the late Charlie Kirk pressed him on the issue.
Newsom’s office provided a transcript of an apparent exchange between him and a reporter on April 2, the day after the bills were blocked, in which the governor said he “didn’t pay any attention” to the bills. He added that he was concerned about the recovery from the Los Angeles wildfires.
“Well, I didn’t pay any attention to the committee yesterday. I was literally most of the day talking about recovery from the Los Angeles fire with our teams. And, by the way, progress is being made there, but we’re starting to run into some of those ‘abundance’ conversations about permits that are already starting to take shape, where most of my attention was yesterday,” Newsom said when asked about the failed vote and the general issue of men in women’s sports.
The US Department of Education (ED) announced 19 new investigations into educational entities suspected of violating Title IX.
Jurupa Unified School District (JUSD) in Shore, California was at the top of the investigations that ED announced on January 14.
Meanwhile, one of the state’s largest public universities, San Jose State, was found to have violated Title IX in its handling of transgender volleyball player Blaire Fleming between 2022 and 2024. SJSU receives the majority of its operating budget from state appropriation, with state funding making up about 52% of its total budget. through the university.
The university has an ultimatum to meet a series of settlement terms, or it could face a loss of federal funds and a possible lawsuit.
