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California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a bill into law approving a study into potential inequalities in youth sports, including “race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income or geographic location.”
The Youth Sports for All Act, AB749, calls for a commission to be formed to conduct “an assessment of the need and potential for a centralized entity to improve access to 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.”
Topics listed include “How to foster a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for youth sports.”
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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office is redoubling its efforts amid controversy over transgender athlete AB Hernandez in the San Jurupa Valley School District. (Mario Tama)
The law also establishes a fund in the state treasury for the commission to spend to pay for its investigations.
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 participating in women’s sports on April 1. All Democratic members voted against it at the time.
Now, the new law comes as the state is embroiled in a divisive culture war over trans athletes in women’s sports. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued state education agencies over policies that allow biological males to compete in women’s sports, while 17 school districts have passed a resolution opposing those policies.
California has been the largest state to defy President Donald Trump’s executive order “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports,” joining Democratic strongholds like Minnesota, Maine and Illinois to defend state laws to protect trans inclusion. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has allowed trans athletes to compete in high school girls’ sports since 2014, when state law AB 1266 was enacted.
As a result, all 17 school boards have taken it upon themselves to speak out against the state’s Democratic leaders and express their support for protecting women’s sports.
The Oakdale Joint Unified School District on Monday became the latest district in California to adopt that type of Title IX resolution, when it was approved unanimously among the district’s trustees. Oakdale Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees President Clayton Schemper led the effort.
“As president of the board, I introduced this resolution because, to me, it is just common sense. There is clearly a biological difference between boys and girls and that is no more obvious than on the playing field,” Schemper told Pak Gazette Digital. “All we ask is that CIF stands up for what is right and upholds its protections by ensuring equity in women’s sports. Tonight, I encourage all school boards in California to do the same and fight not only for our girls, but alongside them.”
In early October, the state’s largest high school district by enrollment and acreage 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 October 6. Derek Tisinger, administrator of the Kern High School District (KHSD), told Pak Gazette Digital that he and his colleagues had to witness a Christian experience. loss of school to one of his district’s schools for 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, with the explanation that “as a school based on the authority of Scripture, we affirm the biblical view that sex is determined by God at the moment of conception.”
“People try to say, ‘Hey, it only affects a small number of people,’ but there were probably 30 girls who practiced and dreamed their whole lives about playing volleyball, and they didn’t get to play,” Tisinger said.
Resistance to the participation of trans athletes is believed to have led to other volleyball losses at the statewide level dating back to last year.
This season, the Jurupa Valley High School girls volleyball team has lost 10 regular-season games on its schedule, Pak Gazette Digital previously reported. The team is currently embroiled in national controversy after two of its senior 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 a Christian high school in Northern California, Stone Ridge Christian, lost a playoff match to San Francisco Waldorf, which had a trans athlete on its team.
newsom office previously provided a statement to Pak Gazette Digital, referring responsibility for the situation to the CIF, the CDE and the state legislature.
“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.
TO bipartisan poll of the Public Policy Institute of California found that a majority of California residents oppose biological trans male athletes competing in women’s sports.
That figure included more than 70% of state school parents.
“A majority of Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth,” the poll states.
“Solid majorities of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender with which they identify. An overwhelming majority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement.”
