On the menu today: What happened yesterday was more than just the governing body of California high school athletics adjusting the rules to ensure more female athletes participate in this weekend’s state track and field championships. It was an educational governing body in a blue state, one of the first to officially protect trans athletes, acknowledging that female athletes and parents have a legitimate objection to the existing policy, and an implicit recognition that trans athletes and female athletes are different. Legally, philosophically, and logically, the California Interscholastic Federation’s new “pilot entry process” is a hard shove to the table that the Jenga Tower of trans athletic participation is built upon.
California’s ‘Pilot Entry Process’ Is a Significant Step Toward Sanity in Girls’ Sports
Skip over President Trump’s chaotic capitalization* for a moment, and peruse his Truth Social post from 9:07 a.m. Tuesday:
California, under the leadership of Radical Left Democrat Gavin Newscum, continues to ILLEGALLY allow “MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.” This week a transitioned Male athlete, at a major event, won “everything,” and is now qualified to compete in the “State Finals” next weekend. As a Male, he was a less than average competitor. As a Female, this transitioned person is practically unbeatable. THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS. Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to. The Governor, himself, said it is “UNFAIR.” I will speak to him today to find out which way he wants to go??? In the meantime I am ordering local authorities, if necessary, to not allow the transitioned person to compete in the State Finals. This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!
Trump is referring to A. B. Hernandez, a 17-year-old junior at Jurupa Valley High School in Ontario, Calif., who in February won a girls’ triple jump event by eight feet more than any other competitor. Hernandez also took first place at the meet in the high-jump and long-jump events, nearly three feet ahead of the triple-jump runner-up and two feet ahead of the second-place long-jump competitor.
A few hours later — entirely coincidentally, according to the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom — the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school athletics in the state, announced that girls who fell one spot short of making the cut for the upcoming statewide championship at qualifying meets around the state will now be allowed to compete.
CIF calls this a pilot program. “Under this pilot entry process, any biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their section’s automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals of their section meet, was extended an opportunity to participate in the CIF State Track and Field Championships. The CIF believes this pilot entry process achieves the participation opportunities we seek to afford our student-athletes.”
That brief statement is awfully terse for such a charged issue, considering it is the first sign that anyone in California’s educational athletics establishment has recognized that there is a problem with someone born male participating in girls’ sports. As our Haley Strack reports, political activist Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer who was forced to compete against a transgender male during her collegiate career, contended, “This is not an adequate response from CIF following Trump’s threat to pull funds from [California]. Boys would still be competing against girls. . . . [CIF is] fully admitting girls are being pushed out of their sports by boys. They just think the boys’ feelings matter more.”
This policy is also not in compliance with President Trump’s executive order banning men from participating in women’s sports.
But it is significant in that it’s the first time anyone in California’s education establishment has conceded, through actions and policy choices, that the female student athletes and parents who object to the participation of trans athletes might have a legitimate complaint. By adding another slot for any “any biological female student-athlete” that would have qualified if the trans athlete had not competed, the CIF is acknowledging, through the rules and policies, that there’s a difference between an athlete born male and an athlete born female.
Legally, philosophically, and logically, this “pilot entry process” is a hard shove to the table that the Jenga Tower was built upon. If there’s no difference between an athlete born male and an athlete born female, then there’s no need for this policy change. And if there is a difference between an athlete born male and an athlete born female, then it doesn’t make any sense to have them competing in the same category labeled “women’s athletics.”
Up until yesterday, the position of the CIF was that there was no valid or justifiable objection to these athletes participating.
The CIF had a “Gender Diverse Youth Sport Inclusivity Toolkit.” That toolkit declared, “The CIF encourages participation for all students regardless of their gender identity or expression. Further, most local, state and federal rules and regulations require schools to provide transgender and other gender-diverse student-athletes with equal opportunities to participate in athletics . . . this policy encourages a culture in which student-athletes can compete in a safe and supportive environment, free of discrimination.”
Got that? Any objection to the participation of transgender and other gender-diverse student-athletes was a form of discrimination. This morning? Eh, not so much.
CIF added its Gender Identity Participation philosophy and eligibility rules in February 2013, months before the State of California enacted a law requiring public schools to allow transgender K–12 students access to whichever restroom and locker room they want. The law gave students the right “to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities” based on their self-identification and regardless of their birth gender. The spokesman for the bill’s sponsor said of those born one gender and identifying as another, “They’re not interested in going into bathrooms and flaunting their physiology.”
But to me, the more intriguing angle of all this is Newsom — who still has obvious presidential ambitions.
“CIF’s proposed pilot is a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness,” Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement. “The governor is encouraged by this thoughtful approach.”
When California changed its laws regarding trans students, the legislation was signed into law by former Governor Jerry Brown. The lieutenant governor of California at the time was Gavin Newsom. If Newsom had any objections to that law at the time, he kept them to himself.
And then, seemingly out of the blue in Newsom’s inaugural edition of his podcast, with conservative activist Charlie Kirk as his guest, the California governor said he had always felt there was a problem with the “fairness” of trans athletes competing against those born female:
Kirk: But like, would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports?
Newsom: Well, it’s I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. So, it’s deeply—
Kirk: Would you speak out against this young man, A.B. Hernandez, who right now is going to win the state championship in the long jump, I can see you wrestling with it.
Newsom: No, I’m not wrestling. I’m not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you. By the way, as someone with four kids, you got to think two daughters, right, two daughters and a wife that went — God forbid — to Stanford, played on the junior national soccer team, and a guy who got into college only because I was left-handed and could throw baseball a little bit, or hit the ball for a little bit. So, I revere sports, and so the issue of fairness is completely legit.
Back when Newsom said that, I noted that he didn’t follow up his vague lament about fairness with any pledge to do something about it, no statement of, “And thus, I will be pushing to repeal the 2013 law that gave students the right to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities, and facilities based on their self-identification and regardless of their birth gender.” Newsom told the world that he felt that those born male participating in women’s sports is unfair, but not quite strongly enough to do anything about it.
On paper, this policy shift by CIF is what he wanted — an effort to address “fairness” — but all we get is a brief statement issued through his spokesman. You almost get the feeling that the California governor wishes the issue would go away.
Maybe Newsom was chastened by the response from his fellow Democrats after his comments to Kirk. California State Senator Scott Wiener said, “Charlie Kirk is a vile bigot, and standing with him on this issue is profoundly disturbing.”
Transgender podcaster Erin Reed argued that Newsom had transformed from an ally to a threat:
When Newsom platforms someone like Charlie Kirk, he isn’t fostering a “discussion” on transgender people in sports — he is handing a known hate monger a microphone to denigrate an already vulnerable community. That’s the real objective. Newsom isn’t engaging in open dialogue or debate; he is recalibrating his political stance to make targeting transgender people seem palatable, selling that shift to his base as a strategic necessity. And he’s doing it by giving one of the most notorious anti-LGBTQ+ extremists a seat at the table.
State Assembly Member Alex Lee directly characterized Newsom’s newfound opposition to trans athletes as a threat to his presidential ambitions: “Throwing trans people under the bus will alienate lots of people who are LGBTQ+ and allies across the nation. . . . If you’re running to be a Republican nominee, this is a great strategy. But if you want to run as a Democrat and someone who is pro-human rights, this is a terrible look.”
In other words, for a whole bunch of Democrats and progressive activists — the sort of people who will donate to 2028 presidential candidates and vote in the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries — there’s no room for any concession on this issue. Any Democratic official who suggests there’s something implicitly unfair or wrong with transgender high school athletes taking the same field or court as female high school athletes is making powerful enemies, who will work hard to prevent that official from winning the nomination.
Back in January, I wrote, “Maybe the catastrophe of the Los Angeles County wildfires will drive a stake in the heart of the ‘Newsom could be president someday’ chatter.”
Newsom’s odd and clumsy effort to reinvent himself as a centrist may well be doing what his catastrophic management of state government couldn’t.
*Notice Trump tends to capitalize nouns. Trump’s heritage is German, and in that language, they capitalize nouns.
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, New York City is about to make a terrible mistake.