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SACROMENTO — California lawmakers rejected a Republican-sponsored bill on Tuesday, restricting high school athletes from participating in girls and girls’ sports.
Despite hours of passionate testimony, this result never became a problem in the California Legislature where Democrats hold the vast majority and Republicans have little power.
The key to both sides was the lively discussion that took place in the glamorous Capitol hearing room on Tuesday morning.
Assembly Bill 89 requires lawmaker Kate A. Sanchez (R-Trabuco Canyon) to ban the inter-Calif. federal federation between California prohibits students who prohibit men from competing in high school girls teams at birth.
Congressional Bill 844, Congress member Bill Essayri (R-Corona), requires students to use gender-specific locker rooms, bathrooms and other facilities assigned at birth.
After the bill was introduced, Rep. Christopher M. Ward, who chairs the Congressional Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, said he decided to hold a hearing that Republican complaints were not given the opportunity to be heard in a democratically-led Congress.
The hearing attracted a large number of partisans to the state’s capital.
The conservative California Family Council called it a “capital showdown.”
Until 8:30am – 30 minutes before the start time – meandering along the hallway outside the hearing room, and by 8:45 all seats in the hall had been filled, waiting for the noisy overflow crowd to speak. Among the crowd were roller derby athletes, volleyball players, track stars, parents, nurses, doctors, church leaders, school board members, teachers and academics. They were allowed one at a time in the hearing room to encourage lawmakers to vote for the bill.
Of the 1.76 million high school students in California, approximately 800,000 people participate in school athletics. The CIF, which oversees high school sports in the state, does not keep a record of how many such students are transgender, but experts say the numbers are small. At the university level, fewer than 10 of the 500,000 athletes are transgender, according to recent council testimony from NCAA staff.
Still, the issue of transathlete in sports has been explosive for months in national politics. Republicans who seized the issue portray it as a deeply unfair example of “awakening” politics. President Trump frequently cited the issue on campaign trails last year, signing an executive order in February “to withdraw all funds from education programs that deprive women and girls of fair movement opportunities.”
On the other hand, many on the left say it affects a very large number of athletes. They say politicians have seized hatred and hysterical attacks on trans people to advance their larger conservative agenda.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a prominent Democrat and outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ issues, cried out the debate when he called his participation in women’s sports on his podcast “deeply unfair.”
Since then, Republicans have amplified his comments. When she introduced the bill at the hearing, Sanchez cited Newsom to explain that concerns about the sports trans girls were “not a fringe issue.”
“Let’s be clear. It’s not about hatred. It’s not about fear. And it’s not about right-wing topics,” she said.
Describing herself as a passionate volleyball player in her youth, Sanchez spoke about a girl who loses her coveted spot on the team, and in some cases suffered injuries during the game as trans athletes unfairly compete.
“It’s completely about fairness, safety and integrity,” she said.
Sanchez brought in a high school track athlete who didn’t provide her full name. He told lawmakers that the “biological men” on her team defeated her, and that her dream of being perfected at a higher level was cancelled.
“I feel like I’m wrong,” she said. “I don’t understand how my efforts, my dedication, are meaningless.”
She was one of many speakers who appeared before lawmakers, and when testimony time was over, elected officials voted along the party line to reject the bill.
“You use our most vulnerable students as political embraces,” Congressman Rick Chavez Zuber (D-Los Angeles) points to research showing that transgender students are at high risk of suicide and have dropped out of school. He added that trans students have been taking part in high school sports for 10 years with little fanfare, but this has become a recent issue.
Assembly speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) made a surprise appearance to fill out the hearing for absent members, but said the bill was not necessary.
“There’s no trend in transgender kids playing basketball, soccer or other sports,” he said. “Right now, Texas has more measles kids than there are trans athletes in the NCAA. That’s a trend that we all need to worry about.”
However, Republicans said the issue is one of the fairness, and that several speakers pointed to the girl suffering as a result of allowing trans athletes to the team. Republicans also warned that support for California trans athletes is at risk of losing billions of dollars in federal funds because they contradict the president’s executive order.
“There’s a biological reality,” the essay said. The essay pointed out a young track athlete in his district and said he was knocked out of the top team spot by a trans athlete. “It’s a matter of fairness.”
After the hearing, Republicans in Congress held a press conference to seduce Democrats to block further debate over the two bills, according to a vote that the majority of California voters agreed. Democrats on the committee also said they have just placed California education funds on a clash course with the Trump administration.
“We were called the Nazis to stand up for common sense,” said Rep. James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). “What we’re talking about is standing up for a young woman in California.”
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