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California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law on Monday that approved a study on potential inequities 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 carry out “an assessment of the need and potential for a centralized entity to improve access to and involvement in sports for all youth, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income, or geographic location, that addresses issues in youth sports.”
The listed issues include “How to foster a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment for youth sports.”
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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office doubles down 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 expend to pay for its research.
The California Assembly’s vote to pass AB749 comes months after it, and its Democrat majority, voted to block two bills that would have banned biological males from girls’ sports on April 1. Every Democrat member voted against it then.
Now, the new law comes while the state is embroiled in a divisive culture war over trans athletes in girls’ sports. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued the state’s educational agencies for policies that enable biological males to compete in girls’ sports, while 17 school districts have now passed a resolution to oppose those policies.
California has been the largest state to defy President Donald Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, joining Democrat strongholds like Minnesota, Maine and Illinois in upholding state laws to protect trans inclusion. The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has allowed trans athletes to compete in girls’ high school sports since 2014, when state law AB 1266 was enacted.
As a result, the 17 school boards have made it a point to speak out against the state’s Democratic leaders, and express their support for protecting girls’ sports.
Oakdale Joint Unified School District became the latest district in California to adopt that type of Title IX resolution on Monday, when it passed unanimously among the district’s trustees. Oakdale Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees President Clayton Schemper led the initiative.
“As the Board President, I brought forth this resolution because to me, it’s 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 Fox News Digital. “All we ask is that CIF stand for what is right and uphold its protections by ensuring fairness in girls’ sports. Tonight, I encourage all school boards in California to do the same and to fight not only for, but alongside, our girls.”
Earlier in October, the biggest high school district by enrollment and land area in the state passed a similar resolution. Kern High School District regularly enrolls more than 40,000 students and employs more than 1,700 staff per year across its 31 schools, became the 16th district to do so on Oct. 6. Kern High School District (KHSD) trustee Derek Tisinger told Fox News Digital that he and his colleagues had to witness a Christian school forfeit to one of the schools in its district over a trans athlete last month.
INSIDE GAVIN NEWSOM’S TRANSGENDER VOLLEYBALL CRISIS
Bakersfield Christian forfeited its freshman/sophomore game to Ridgeview High School in the final week of September, with the explanation that “As a school grounded in the authority of Scripture, we affirm the biblical view that sex is determined by God at conception.”
“People try to say, ‘hey, it only affects a small amount of people,’ but there were probably 30 girls that practiced and dreamed their whole life about playing volleyball, and they didn’t get to play,” Tisinger said.
Resistance to trans athlete participation is believed to have prompted other volleyball forfeits at the variety level across the state dating back to last year.
This season, Jurupa Valley High School’s girls’ volleyball team has seen 10 regular-season games forfeited from its schedule, Fox News Digital previously reported. The team is currently embroiled in a 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, a Christian high school girls’ volleyball team in northern California, Stone Ridge Christian, forfeited a playoff game to San Francisco Waldorf, which had a trans athlete on its team.
Newsom’s office previously provided a statement to Fox News Digital, deferring responsibility for the situation to the CIF, CDE and state legislature.
“CIF is an independent nonprofit that governs high school sports. The California Department of Education is a separate constitutional office. Neither is under the Governor’s authority. CIF and the CDE have stated 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 the Governor a bill. They have not,” the statement read.
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A bipartisan survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found the majority of California residents oppose biological male trans athletes competing in women’s sports.
That figure included more than 70% of the state’s school parents.
“Most Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching the sex they were assigned at birth,” the poll stated.
“Solid majorities of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with. An overwhelming majority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement.”
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