Bills Confronting California’s Trans Policy Undermining Girls’ Athletics: Hearing Tuesday

On April Fools Day the California Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports & Tourism Committee will hear two bills to ban biological men claiming to be trans women out of girls’ sports.

AB 844 by Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Riverside), will require that students use all school facilities to only play on sports teams based on their biological sex and not their gender identity. “We know the state of California is going to do everything it can to resist and avoid compliance with federal law, so it’s our role to try to force change at the state and local level,” Essayli said.

Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez has introduced AB 89 to ban trans athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports – the “Protect Girls’ Sports Act. Sanchez’s proposed law will also override the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) bylaw that 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.”

The Globe attended the last board meeting of the CIF, where a coalition of women and CIF high school female athletes addressed biological males participating in women and girls sports. The CIF got an earful from women, moms, parents, and female student athletes – primarily about how unsafe it is for female athletes when teen boys and young men are allowed to compete in sports against teen girls and young women, because of the above education code and CIF policy.

Two other bills that were introduced by Essayli and Assemblywoman Leticia Castillo, focus on empowering parents to remove their children from settings and situations that promote transgender ideology in public schools. “Reestablishing the primacy of parental rights over dangerous indoctrination is a critical first step in reestablishing trust in our schools and educators,” Castillo said.

These should be non-controversial bills in a country with Title IX protections for women, Lance Christensen, President of California Policy Partners, said. “However, both bills are likely to die at the hands of radical activists, led by the committee chair, Asm. Chris Ward. How do I know this? Because Asm. Ward has been actively attacking parental & women’s rights during his time in the legislature. Who else would rush through AB 1955, a bill that urges schools to keep secrets from parents (something that I was told not to do as a child in the very rational 1980s)? Democrats already rejected Asm. Essayli’s attempt at a floor vote. What if we had hundreds of girls show up with their mom or dad to support the @billessayli & @KateSanchezCA bills in committee? Have them line up, state their name, the position & sport they play & state that they don’t want to play against boys because it’s unfair?”

Indeed. It should matter to the members of the committee, but the California Legislature is a Democrat supermajority, and has moved to the left of Bernie Sanders.

Thousands of supporters of Essayli’s and Sanchez’s bills can and should show up, but Democrats will likely shut supporters and the bills down. Assemblyman Chris Ward (D-San Diego) is the Chairman of the LGBTQ Caucus, and a far-left LGBTQ activist. 

Ward is the author of Assembly Bill 1955, the controversial bill signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom, which prohibits school districts from notifying parents if their kids are “gender” transitioning while at school. The Trump Administration Department of Education just announced they are investigating the California Department of Education over Assemblyman Ward’s odious new law, the Globe reported last week.

However, it is still important to show up and demonstrate parental rights to lawmakers. As Lance said, “the unions and anti-parent activists will be there in droves. It’s time to show up regardless of what happens to the bills.”

The Globe has covered these dangerous bills for many years, robbing parents of their rights.

In 2023, after the Legislature passed five new LGBTQ and trans-specific bills, I harkened back to 2011 when SB 48 by then-Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) was passed and Gov. Brown signed it into law. It was very general in language, and required California schools to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in social science instruction.

However, SB 48 also became the overarching catch-all for anything LGBTQ in education – and the left has been making the most of it, while simultaneously diminishing actual education, resulting in California students ranking 50th in literacy in the entire country.

In December, the Globe reported on the devious new California law that prohibits libraries from ‘banning’ pornographic library books. Assembly Bill 1825 by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), was jammed through the California Legislature, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom September 29, 2024, to shut parents up. The bills’ sole purpose is not to protect your kids from pornographic library books, but to prevent the pornographic library books from being banned by parents and school boards.

The hearing starts at 9:00am in Room 444 of the actual State Capitol. You can read about the bills here: https://aart.assembly.ca.gov/hearings.