April Fools Day: Bills to Disallow Trans-Women in Girls Sports Killed by Assembly Committee

It really felt like April Fools Day in the California Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports & Tourism Committee Tuesday morning. Or upside down world. Parents and their female athletes who do not want trans girls/biological boys to compete in girls’ and women’s sports were called Nazis by Assembly Democrats.

Men dressing in women’s clothing and playing on women’s sports teams should be laughed at. Instead, in our current bizarre opposite world, “trans-women” athletes are joining women’s sports teams and dominating, and even physically harming female athletes. Men claiming to be women are in women’s locker rooms. They are in college dormitories, even sharing dorm rooms with young college women.

Two bills to disallow trans athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports – AB 89 and AB 844 – were heard Tuesday in the Assembly Committee, and killed by Democrats, but only after blaming President Donald Trump, DOGE, and calling those supporting the bills, “Nazis.”

Not very long ago, competing in athletics according to your biological sex was the standard. In fact, competing in athletics according to your biological sex was made federal law in 1972 with Title IX.

Now you’re a Nazi for supporting and upholding Title IX according to California Democrats.

The worst part is that high school and university officials across the country have been allowing this, putting girls in harms way.

Allowing transgender female athletes to compete deprives other female athletes, cuts some female athletes out of scholarships, and violates the equal protection promised in Title IX. Young female athletes are being treated immorally and dishonestly.

Assemblyman Chris Ward (D-San Diego), Chairman of the California Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports & Tourism Committee, and Chairman of the LGBTQ Caucus, conflated being gay with trans athletes. Yet many LGBT organizations do not support trans-athletes competing in sports against biological women.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas) strangely replaced a committee member on the hearing panel, and said “There is no epidemic of trans athletes.” He then made a spectacle of himself claiming that “more kids in Texas have the measles than there are trans athletes – that’s the epidemic we all should be concerned about.”

He launched into carping about DOGE and Donald Trump: “Californians have lost their jobs because of DOGE.” He said women face threats today but not from trans athletes.

“I’m not going to support a bill that takes away rights for a protected class in California,” Rivas added. However Speaker Rivas neglected to acknowledge that trans-women athletes are taking away the Title IX rights of biological female athletes.

And then he ran. As most of the Capitol Press Corps knows, Speaker Robert Rivas has not spoken to them in months. Ashley Zavala with KCRA News said on X/Twitter that he refused to talk to reporters after he voted no on AB 89, and then he hightailed it out of the hearing room with reporters on his tail asking questions:

“California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas refuses to answer questions from reporters after lawmakers rejected bill that would no longer allow trans athletes in girls’ high school sports. I repeatedly tried to ask if he’s worried about losing funds from Trump admin over this.”

Assemblyman Jeff Gonzalez (R-Indio) asked attorney and “lifelong Democrat” Erin Friday if California does not comply with Title IX, is the state at risk of losing federal funding. Friday said that currently the U.S. Department of Education is investigating the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) for Title IX violations. The CIF bylaw demonstrating this violation states, “All students should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on a student’s records.” [emphasis the Globe]

Friday said that California receives $8 Billion in federal funds, with a contractual obligation for accepting those funds to not discriminate based on sex.

Assemblyman Rick Zbur (D-Los Angeles) said “AB 89 is harmful to tens of thousands of students here in California,” and is using “the most vulnerable students in the state as a cudgel, without any thought about them.”

“I’ve never heard any complaints about trans participating in athletics.” Zbur then accused Assemblywoman Sanchez of “playing on the hate and fear of trans.”

“What Trump has us doing is playing on the fears of immigrants and trans and banning them from medical care and life,” he said. “This is what happened in Nazi Germany,” Zbur said. He said LGBT and trans were killed by Nazis. Zbur said he’s spoken to hundreds of parents of trans kids, and then brought up the Martin Niemöller post-WWII statement:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist… Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Zbur said what was left out of that sentiment was “then they came for the trans and LGBTQ people.”

“I’m sad and disgusted that the bill was brought today,” Zbur said.

Assemblywoman Sanchez said nowhere in the bill is the word “ban,” as it is the “Protect Girls’ Sports Act, and will also override the offending California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) bylaw. “AB 89 is about protecting women and girls  – that’s it,” Sanchez said. “They are relying on us to make the change today.”

The committee voted 7 – 2 to kill the bill.

Assemblyman Essayli’s bill, AB 844 will require that students use all school facilities to only play on sports teams based on their biological sex and not their gender identity, and was received much the same by the committee, despite that US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon endorsed AB 844.

“By denying gender in sports, you are denying girls opportunities,” Essayli said. From his district high school athlete Taylor Starling attended the hearing to testify. She was the captain of her cross-country team, until she was removed from her role when a male/trans-female transfer student was given her spot. She also missed out running in a key race.

“XX does not equal XY,” Starling said. “Lots of girls are told to sit out and be quiet.” Then she created “Save Girls’ Sports” and made T-shirts, but was punished by school officials claiming that the “hostile” messages were tantamount to swastikas, the Washington Times reported.

Essayli invited Matt Walsh to testify at the hearing – yes, that Matt Walsh of “What is a Woman” movie fame. But rather than dissecting what a woman is, or delving into fairness, although men in women’s sports “is deeply unfair,” Walsh said the truth is what matters most:

“Allowing men into their sports teams and into their bathrooms is incredibly unsafe.

You must keep men out of their facilities and sports for the simple truth that they are men. Men are not women. A man who claims he is a woman is still not a woman. So why shouldn’t men play in women’s sports? Because they aren’t women.

Men are not women. It’s not truth. It is a lie.

A man who claims he is a woman is deluded or confused, or he is a crossdressing fetishist looking to play out his fantasies in public. In either case, the claim to womanhood is not true. And compelling when to take part in this untruth, is evil, perverse and predatory.

If you would use the force of law to compel young girls to use a changing room with a boy, you are yourselves, predators. Transgenderism is a lie. It is such a deranged lie that man ever invented. In a free country, nobody should ever be forced to participate in a lie. As lawmakers, you have an obligation to the truth. It is a truth you all will recognize because every human who has ever lived on earth recognizes it – that men are men, and women are women, and it is that simple.

Will you side with the truth, a truth so basic that every toddler understands it, or will you disgrace yourselves by denying it? That is your choice to make.”

There were hundreds of people lining the Capitol hallways waiting to express their support or opposition to the bills. Representatives from LGBT and Trans groups, Rainbow Family Coalition, lots of parents of Cis or trans children, as well as Capitol Resource Institute, California Family Council, Freedom Angels, Moms for Liberty, “Women Are Real,” a handful of loud and proud trans community members, a roller derby team, college athletes, high school and elementary school athletes, Democrats in support of the bills, and an assortment of mask-wearing, odd characters.

In closing, Assemblyman Essayli reiterated that his bill says it requires schools to base participation in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use of facilities, including bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and overnight accommodations, on the sex of pupils, and that a biological male is a threat to a female. “You are violating the rights of girls and women,” he said.

Before the vote, Assemblyman Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) warned that “it is dangerous to rely on emotion over logic.”

The committee voted 6-2 to kill the bill.

Later after the hearing, Republicans met across the hall for a press conference. Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher said “we’ve been called Nazis for standing up for common sense – for young women.”

Gallagher identified the Democrats’ radical policies, and instead of embracing common sense policies, “called us names and dismissed the real problems. But their policies have caused the problem.”

Leader Gallagher noted that Gov. Newsom was “nowhere to be found today,” after stating on his podcast that it’s “deeply unfair” for trans-girls and women to compete in female sports.

Gallagher noted that “the governor can jam this legislature, but didn’t do it today” despite saying he thinks ‘it’s deeply unfair.”