California schools could lose federal funding due to a state law allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports.
That law is once again coming to the forefront with San Francisco Waldorf, which has a transgender athlete playing on the girls’ basketball team.
The backstory: Last November, Merced high school Stone Ridge Christian forfeited a girls’ volleyball playoff game against San Francisco Waldorf because of the presence of a transgender athlete on the team.
- The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has guidelines for Gender Identity Participation, allowing students to participate in sports in a manner consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on their official records.
The big picture: San Francisco Waldorf will play Antioch school Cornerstone Christian in a girls’ basketball playoff game on Saturday. Fox News reported the same transgender athlete who played for the girls’ volleyball team also plays on the basketball team.
- Cornerstone Christian is going ahead with the game and will not forfeit the matchup, the school’s athletic director told Fox News.
State of play: The game comes amid an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights into the CIF over its transgender policy.
- Last week the Department of Education announced investigations into the Minnesota State High School League and the CIF for violating federal antidiscrimination laws by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports.
- Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed the Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports executive order, which rescinds all funds from schools that allow transgender students to compete in women’s sports.
- The order seeks to protect female athletic opportunities guaranteed by Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.
What he’s saying: Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement that the CIF is “free to engage in all the meaningless virtue-signaling” that it wants to, but it is required to abide by federal law.
- “OCR’s Chicago and San Francisco regional offices will conduct directed investigations into both organizations to ensure that female athletes in these states are treated with the dignity, respect, and equality that the Trump Administration demands,” Trainor said. “I would remind these organizations that history does not look kindly on entities and states that actively opposed the enforcement of federal civil rights laws that protect women and girls from discrimination and harassment.”
