WASHINGTON — California discriminated against women and girls by letting biological men compete on their sports teams and enter their bathrooms and locker rooms, a Trump administration civil rights probe concluded Wednesday.
The US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights determined that California’s Education Department and Interscholastic Federation, which has received state funding, were in “clear violation of Title IX” for having “actively prevented this equality of opportunity by allowing males in girls’ sports and intimate spaces.”
The civil rights office has given the Golden State 10 days to reverse course — or face “imminent enforcement action” that could include a referral to the Department of Justice.
“Although Governor Gavin Newsom admitted months ago it was ‘deeply unfair’ to allow men to compete in women’s sports, both the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation continued as recently as a few weeks ago to allow men to steal female athletes’ well-deserved accolades and to subject them to the indignity of unfair and unsafe competitions,” US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
“The Trump Administration will relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls, and our findings today make clear that California has failed to adhere to its obligations under federal law. The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow.”
The 1972 law is meant to protect equal opportunities regardless of sex in schools receiving federal funds.
Most Americans — and as many as 69% of Democrats — support sex-segregated sports participation, a New York Times poll found in January.
Several Western nations, including the UK, have also banned or severely limited the practice of hormone therapy and providing puberty-blocking drugs to children, citing physical and psychological harms and the need for further study of long-term effects.
Past research studies show that transgender female athletes maintain a competitive advantage over their biological female peers even after undergoing hormone therapy to transition genders.
“It wouldn’t be a day ending in ‘Y’ without the Trump Administration threatening to defund California. Now Secretary McMahon is confusing government with her WrestleMania days — dramatic, fake, and completely divorced from reality,” said a spokesperson for Newsom. “This won’t stick.”
The Trump Education Department’s warning for California also comes after the US Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law prohibiting hormone therapy for minors.
To reverse course, the California educational entities must inform any recipients of federal funding to “adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female,’” according to Trump’s Education Department.
California’s Interscholastic Federation must also “restore to female athletes all individual records, titles, and awards misappropriated by male athletes competing in female competitions” — including Katie McGuinness, who placed second against a trans athlete in the long jump at the federation’s Southern Section Final last month.
California’s Education Department must in addition “send a personalized letter apologizing on behalf of the state of California for allowing her educational experience to be marred by sex discrimination.”
And the state office will have to annually certify that any recipients of federal funds are in compliance with Title IX.
In California, there are nearly 6 million K-12 athletes but fewer than 10 are transgender, a state official noted. Just around 10 are transgender of the more than 500,000 NCAA student-athletes nationally.
The Golden State is one of more than 20 that allow transgender athletes to compete in sports identifying as a gender of their choosing.
The Education Department launched the investigation into the state’s interscholastic sports federation on Feb. 12 after the organization said it was going to flout the president’s executive order preventing transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports.
The department has dubbed June “Title IX Month” and is “commemorating women’s continued push for equal educational and athletic opportunity.”
“The California Department of Education believes all students should have the opportunity to learn and play at school, and we have consistently applied existing law in support of students’ rights to do so,” said spokeswoman Liz Sanders.
“The CIF does not comment on legal matters,” added a spokesperson for the athletic organization.
