Sacramento – California lawmakers on Tuesday rejected a Republican-sponsored bill to limit trans-school athletes to participate in women’s and women’s sports, the latest in a high-octane debate that continues to split the country.
Despite hours of enthusiastic testimony, the results of Democrats holding great respect in the California Legislature, Republicans have little power and never really been questioned.
For both sides, it was a fierce debate Tuesday morning in the gorgeous Capitol hearing room.
The conference bill raised by the conference Kate A. Sanchez (R-Trabuco Canyon) will require the inter-California inter-school federation to prohibit any student assigned to males at birth to compete in the girls’ high school team.
Bill 844 (R-Corona) raised by the General Assembly will require students to use locker rooms, bathrooms and other facilities that match the gender assigned at birth.
After the bill was introduced, the chairman’s parliamentary chair Christopher M. Ward (D-san Diego), chairing the parliament’s Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, said he did not give the opportunity to hear their questions in the Democratic-led legislature and decided to hold a hearing due to Republican complaints.
The hearing attracted a large number of guerrilla parties to the state capital.
The conservative California Family Council calls it a “capital showdown.”
30 minutes before the start time to 8:30 am – A line winds along the corridor outside the hearing room, and by 8:45, every seat in the hall is filled with a noisy overflowing crowd outside, waiting for a speech. In the crowd were roller derby athletes, volleyball players, track and field stars, parents, nurses, doctors, church leaders, school board members, teachers and scholars. They were allowed to enter the hearing room one by one, urging lawmakers to vote up and down.
Of the 1.76 million high school students in California, about 800,000 participated in school track and field. The CIF, which oversees high school athletics in the state, does not keep records of how many such students are among trans people, but experts say the number is small. At the college level, less than 10 of the 500,000 athletes are transgender, according to the latest testimony from NCAA officials.
Nevertheless, in national politics, the problem of sports cross-athletes has exploded. Republicans who seized on this issue described it as a very unfair example of “wake up” politics. President Trump often quoted the issue on his campaign last year and signed it in February Executive Order This will “revoke all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair opportunities for sports.”
Meanwhile, many on the left say this will affect a large number of athletes. Instead of focusing on the real problem, politicians have seized on hatred and hysterical attacks on trans people to raise a larger conservative agenda, they said.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a well-known Democrat and a long-time outspoken supporter of the LGBTQ+ issue, scrambled to debate when he called trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports “deeply unfair.”
Republicans have been expanding his comments ever since. When she introduced the bill at the hearing, Sanchez quoted Newsom as saying that concerns about trans girls in sports were “not marginal issues.”
“Let’s be clear. It’s not about hatred. It’s not about fear. It’s not the point of the right-wing conversation.”
Sanchez described himself as a passionate volleyball player at a young age, talking about the sights where girls lost their dream vet on the team and in some cases injured in the game because trans athletes unfairly competed with them.
“It’s all about fairness, security and integrity,” she said.
Sanchez brought in a high school track and field athlete who did not provide her full name, who told lawmakers that she was eliminated with a higher level of dream fulfillment because one of her “biological males” on her team beat her.
“It feels good,” she said. “I don’t understand how my hard work and my dedication become meaningless.”
She was one of dozens of spokespersons who appeared before the MP, and when the time of the testimony period, elected officials voted along the party’s rejection bill.
Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles D) said: “You use our most vulnerable students as a political cudgel. He added that trans students have been in big names for high school sports for a decade, but it has only become a problem until recently.
Parliament President Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) made an unexpected appearance at the hearing, saying the bills were unnecessary.
“There is no epidemic of trans kids playing basketball, football or any other sport,” he said. “Now, there are more children with measles in Texas than trans athletes in the NCAA. That’s the pandemic that we all worry about.”
But Republicans say the problem is fair, with several spokespersons pointing out that girls suffer from the pain of allowing trans athletes. Republicans also warn that California’s support for trans athletes puts the state at risk of losing billions of dollars in federal funds as it contradicts the president’s executive order.
“There is a biological reality,” said Essayli, who pointed to a young track and field athlete in his area who said he was eliminated from the top team by a trans athlete. “It’s a fair question.”
After the hearing, Republican members of the Legislature held a press conference to promote Democrats to prevent further debate on the two bills, and they said polls showed that most voters in California agreed. Some also said that the committee’s Democrats just collided with the Trump administration’s courses.
“We are called Nazis to stick to common sense,” said Congressman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). “We are talking about standing up for young women in California.”
