California law facilitates precisely the kind of discrimination that Title IX is meant to prevent
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.
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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.”
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