SACROMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Starting Friday, the California High School Athletics Championships will be a test ground for new participation and medallization policies for competitions that include transgender athletes.
The Inter-Calif. Federation of Integrated Federations could offer additional medals in three events where additional students compete and trans-athletes compete. Athlete, high school junior AB Hernandez is the second seed of the triple jump and will also take part in the long jump and high jump.
It is the first effort by the high school sports governing body to expand participation when trans athletes are involved, reflecting efforts to find an intermediate foundation for the debate on trans girls’ participation in youth sports.
“The CIF values all student-athletes and will continue to support its mission to provide students with opportunities to belong, connect and compete while adhering to California law,” the group said in a statement after announcing changes to the rules.
State law allows trans students to compete with sex-segregated sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity.
President Donald Trump threatened this week to withdraw federal funds from California unless trans female athletes ban women from competing for women’s teams. The U.S. Department of Justice also said it would look into state federations and districts, including Harnandez high schools, to determine whether they violated federal sex discrimination laws by allowing trans girls to compete in women’s sports.
What will the new participation and medal policy look like?
The competition held at a high school near Fresno will open girls’ triple jumps, long jumps and high jumps to one of each athlete who would have been qualified if Hernandez had not participated. Hernandez will compete in Friday’s qualifying for a chance to advance to Saturday’s final.
Under the pilot policy, for trans athlete medals, their rankings will not drive “biological women” students out of medallization, the federal said.
The federation said the rules open the field to more “biological women” athletes. One expert said that while creating an extra space for “biological women” athletes, the change itself could be discriminatory as it is not another trans athlete.
The federation did not specify how to define “biological women” or how to check whether their competitors meet that definition.
Health experts say gender is a spectrum, not a binary structure consisting solely of men and women.
The two-day conference is expected to attract attention from a coalition of protesting parents and students. Critics opposed Hernandez’s participation and held her down at a qualifying event earlier this month. Conservative California Family Council leaders joined Republican state lawmakers on Thursday for a press conference that blasted policy changes and said Hernandez should not be allowed to compete.
“If they have to create special exceptions and changes to backdoor rules to appease frustrated athletes, it’s not equal. It’s a confession,” Council’s outreach director Sophia Laurie said in a statement. “Girls’ sports must be for girls.”
CIF Executive Director Ron Nocetti urged participants and bystanders to behave with respect to all student-athletes in a message shared in the Championship program.
National discussion of trans-athlete participation
A recent AP-NORC poll shows that around seven in 10 adults in the US believe that transgender female athletes should not be allowed to participate in female and female sports at high school, college or occupational levels. That view was shared by about nine of the 10 Republicans and about half of the Democrats. Trump won Fresno County, where the tournament will be held in 2024.
Hernandez told Publications Capital & Maine earlier this month that he couldn’t worry about critics.
“I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and behaving like a child shows how you’re like a person,” she said.
She noted that she lost some of her events and said she disproves the argument that she is not beat.
Hernandez is expected to work well, especially in triple jumps. That’s over 3 feet (1 meter) of the national record set in 2019. She is the fifth seed in the long jump, but is ranked much lower in the high jump.
California State Championships stand out from state championships in other states because of the number of competitors athletes are standing up to qualify.
According to a survey by the National High School Association, more than 57,000 high school students participated in outdoor athletics in California between 2023 and 2024 grades. California had the second-largest high school outdoor athletics athlete, only behind Texas.
Of the 12 high school athletes who set a national record for girls’ triple jumps between 1984 and 2019, eight came from California, according to the National Sports Governance Agency.
Davis Whitfield, the National Federation’s Chief Operating Officer, called the high school athlete state championship “the pinnacle.”
“It’s certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be at a state championship event,” he said.
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Austin is a legional member of the Associated Press/Report’s American State University News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit, national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on infiltrated issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophiedanna
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