Female Athletes Challenge California Law Allowing Boys to Invade Girls Sports

Female athletes at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside are suing to overturn the California law that allows biological males who fancy themselves female to participate in girls sports.

The students are already suing woke school officials who barred them from wearing t-shirts promoting girls sports and replaced one of them on an elite cross country team with an unqualified boy who calls himself a girl.

Now, in a filing late last month, they have amended their lawsuit to challenge the California law that has allowed boys to invade girls sports: AB 1126, which says that California students have the right to “participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

The lawsuit says the state law should be invalidated because it conflicts with the landmark federal Title IX law that prohibits discrimination against women and girls in education that allowing trans identifying males into girls sports amounts to a form of discrimination.

The students and their families are being represented by the Murrieta, California-based Advocates for Faith and Freedom conservative law firm.

Advocates for Faith and Freedom lawyer Julianne Fleischer told the California Globe that the California law  “violates Title IV  because it allows boys to take the spots  of qualified female athletes and use female bathrooms. Title IX is intended to protect those female students from those actions. Federal law always preempts state law.  We are contending it violates protections that Title IX affords to female students in California.”

Fleischer said the California law has never been challenged in court and this is the ideal time to do it now that President Trump has issued executive orders that upend transgender orthodoxy. “This is probably the best time to challenge it in light of the current administration and a number of executive orders. We feel there is a lot of federal backing for this challenge.”

On February 4th, Trump signed an executive order titled “No Men in Women’s Sports” that says federal funds would be withheld from educational institutions that allow males into female sports. The executive order cites the same rationale as the amended lawsuit: that the presence of males in female sports amounts to a form of sex discrimination in violation of Title IX.

In an email to the California Globe Fleischer hailed the executive order. “We commend President Trump and his administration for taking decisive action with this common-sense Executive Order. For years, our female athletes have been pushed out of their own sports and locker rooms in the name of “inclusivity.” The simple fact is that boys do not belong on girls’ teams or in girls’ locker rooms. The United States government has made it clear that any educational program that endangers, humiliates, or silences women and girls, particularly through the imposition of policies that compromise privacy, safety, and fairness, will no longer receive federal funding. This policy is a critical step in the effort to SAVE GIRLS’ SPORTS.”

The amended lawsuit names as defendants California Attorney General Rob Bonta, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the Riverside Unified School District and Martin Luther King High School administrators Leann Iacuone and Amanda Chann.

The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are an unincorporated association called Save Girls Sports, which is run out of Advocates for Faith and Freedom law firm. It consists of families and students throughout California, including many students who have been forced to compete against transgender players.

The amended lawsuit says that the California law facilitates precisely the kind of discrimination that Title IX is meant to prevent. “On its face, AB 1266 permits biological males to compete on teams which Title IX requires to be biologically female. Because Title IX preempts state law, and AB 1266 stands in the way of Title IX’s purposes in providing equal opportunity for women, AB 1266 is preempted. Likewise, it is impossible to both require that there be sex separated teams in certain circumstances and allow transgender individuals to compete in accordance with their gender identity.”

Moreover, “AB 1266 further discriminates against women by taking away a protection granted to them by Title IX. Title IX was created to give biological women a safe space to compete, entirely distinct from males, when women are unable to fairly compete through an integrated team. AB 1266  takes away this protection by allowing biological boys into this space.”

The amended lawsuit also says that “AB 1266 directly conflicts with Title IX protections, as it requires California schools to permit biological males to participate on biological female sports teams and to use biological female spaces, resulting in unfair and unsafe environments for females.”

The original lawsuit was filed last November in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. It tells the tale of Martin Luther King High School ruled by transgender orthodoxy.

The two high school girls were identified as K.S. and T.S. in court papers.  The lawsuit charges the District violated K.S. and T.S’s constitutional rights to free speech, due process and equal protection, as well as running afoul of the federal landmark Title IX legislation.

The controversy started when T.S. was bounced from an elite cross country meet scheduled for October 26, 2024 in favor of a transgender student who had missed many practices.

“T.S. was ousted from her position on the girls’ varsity cross-country team to make room for a biological male transgender athlete who did not consistently attend practices and failed to satisfy many of the term’s varsity eligibility qualifications.”

The lawsuit said replacing T.S. with an unqualified transgender student was “discriminatory in effect and denies T.S., a female, equality in athletic opportunities, including equal opportunity to achieve and be recognized for victory.”

Word of T.S.’s exclusion took hold and she gathered support from the school community, according to the lawsuit.  “At the track meet, approximately 18-20 parents and grandparents of MLKHS student athletes wore t-shirts with the message “Save Girls Sports” on the front of the shirt and the message “It’s Common Sense. XX ≠ XY” on the back of the shirt.”

Nobody complained.

But the next day when K.S. and T.S. wore the t-shirts to school, the athletic director, who had placed the transgender student on the team, clamped down on the teenagers.

She forced  the students to remove the t-shirts and told them, according to the lawsuit, that the shirt created a “hostile” environment and  “was analogous to a student who wore a shirt with a swastika in front of a Jewish student.”

The lawsuit notes that “non-disruptive, individual student expression is protected by the First Amendment” and there was nothing disruptive about the t-shirt.

“K.S. and T.S. ‘s expression–wearing a shirt with messages Save Girls Sports and It’s Common Sense. XX ≠ XY–did not and does not materially interfere with the orderly conduct of educational activity at MLKHS.”

Julianne Fleischer, the Advocates for Faith and Freedom lawyer,  said Bonta was served with the amended lawsuit on February 4 and has 60 days to respond. That makes his response due April 4th.

She said she is “very hopeful” that the Court will recognize that Title IX gives her clients the kind of rights that should invalidate the state law.

Bonta’s press office did not reply to a request for comment.