California Rejects Trump's Demands To Enact Full Trans Sports And Bathroom Bans

The State Superintendent of Education responded to Trump's Title IX complaints against trans participation in sports with a rejection of its demands.

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

On June 25, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced that it had found California in violation of Title IX. The alleged violation stems from the state allowing transgender athletes to participate in school sports, even after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and the California Interscholastic Federation partially capitulated to anti-transgender pressures by barring transgender students from competing for the same awards as their cisgender peers. The Department of Education has instead demanded a full ban on transgender athletes, threatening unspecified enforcement actions. In response, the California Department of Education issued a firm rejection of the department’s demands.

“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,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in the initial demands. “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.”

In response, the California Department of Education replied rejecting the demands: “The California Department of Education (CDE) received the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR’s) June 25, 2025 Letter of Finding and Proposed Resolution Agreement in the above-referenced OCR matter. The CDE respectfully disagrees with OCR’s analysis, and it will not sign the Proposed Resolution Agreement."

CA Department of Education Response

The U.S. Department of Education’s demands included a list of discriminatory actions for California to implement. Among them: a ban on transgender students from participating in both school sports and using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity, the adoption of far-right definitions of “male” and “female” that explicitly exclude transgender people, retroactive stripping of medals from transgender athletes to award them to cisgender competitors, personalized apologies from schools to cisgender girls for having competed alongside transgender peers, and a federally mandated “monitoring plan” to oversee athletics in the state.

The rejection of federal demands comes during a turbulent time for transgender people in California. Recently, the state barred a young transgender athlete, AB Hernandez, from competing for the same medals as her peers, instead awarding her “duplicate” medals for any victories. In one event, she placed first in the long jump but was forced to share the title with another athlete; official rankings list her as tying for first, effectively segregating her from the participation rules that apply to cisgender competitors. Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom has shown an increasing willingness to distance himself from transgender rights, telling far-right activist Charlie Kirk in a recent interview that he aligns with conservatives on some transgender issues—particularly around sports.

In recent years, calls for sports bans have expanded to encompass an increasingly absurd range of activities. Darts, disc golf, fishing, billiards, beauty pageants, competitive hot dog eating, and even chess have all come under scrutiny. The International Chess Federation ruled that transgender women have “no right to participate” in female chess categories, and more recently, a young German trans girl faced calls to be banned from competing against her cisgender peers. The U.S. Department of Education’s demands would impose similar restrictions across a wide array of activities that may fall under the umbrella of interscholastic sports in the state. For those who believe that sports bans are a “losing issue” and that Democrats should capitulate to such bans, they would have to be comfortable with bans in a wide variety of sports like those mentioned here.

The California Department of Education’s response offers a glimmer of hope that the state may finally push back after a string of capitulations and retreats on transgender rights. Following Governor Newsom’s troubling comments and the quiet rollback of care in some hospitals after Trump threats—like the closure of gender services at LA Children’s Hospital—transgender Californians are watching closely. They want to know whether their state will defend them or continue caving to federal pressure. In this escalating battle over basic dignity and rights, California’s firm rejection of the Department of Education’s demands is a much-needed signal: there is still fight left in the state.