Trump administration sues California over transgender athletes, putting billions of dollars at risk

The Trump administration on Wednesday sued California for allowing transgender athletes to compete on school sports teams that match their gender identity, alleging state officials violated federal civil rights law by discriminating against women, a legal action that threatens billions of dollars in federal education funds.

The suit, filed in the Central District of California, alleges that California is in violation of Title IX, a 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.

“Title IX was enacted over half a century ago to protect women and girls from discrimination,” U.S. Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement. “The Justice Department will not stand for policies that deprive girls of their hard-earned athletic trophies and ignore their safety on the field and in private spaces. Young women should not have to sacrifice their rights to compete for scholarships, opportunities, and awards on the altar of woke gender ideology.”

The lawsuit names the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees high school sports, in its enforcement action.

The state Department of Education said it would not comment on pending litigation. Earlier this week, its general counsel declined to comply with a federal order from the U.S. Office for Civil Rights to change state practices and to adopt a lengthy compliance agreement that included apologizing for past actions.

“The California Department of Education ... respectfully disagrees with [Office for Civil Rights] analysis and it will not sign the proposed resolution agreement,” general counsel Len Garfinkel wrote in a brief communication.

The enforcement action did not name Gov. Gavin Newsom, but his office responded Wednesday.

The sports organization and the state Department of Education “are following existing state law — a law that was passed in 2013, signed by Governor Jerry Brown, and in line with 21 other states,” said Elana Ross, a spokesperson for the governor’s office. “No court has adopted the interpretation of Title IX advanced by the federal government, and neither the governor, nor they, get to wave a magic wand and override it — unlike Donald Trump, California follows the law.”

In line with California law, state education policy specifically allows athletic participation based on a student’s gender identity.

One point in the lawsuit argues that federal law supersedes state law in this arena.

The amount of funding that the Trump administration asserts to be at stake is staggering, with federal officials citing a figure of $44.3 billion in funding that California was allotted for the current year, including $3.8 billion not yet sent out — dollars that are immediately endangered.

“Potentially, all federal dollars to California public entities are at risk,” said a senior official with the U.S. Department of Education, who spoke on a not-for-attribution basis.

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The litigation threatens not only to pull immediate and future funding but also to apply penalties.

“The suit seeks declaratory, injunctive and damages relief for violations of Title IX,” according to the U.S. Department of Education release. The federal complaint notes that the U.S. Department of Education’s “current allocation of funds to [the California Department of Education] for fiscal year 2025 totals approximately $44.3 billion, of which approximately $3.8 billion remains available for drawdown ... including both discretionary grants and formula grants.”

The clash, essentially, is over conflicting interpretations of civil rights law — and the conflict with California was long expected to end in up court — adding to a long list of lawsuits pitting the Golden State against the Trump administration.

The office of California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement that it would continue to defend the state’s legal interpretation of student civil rights: “Our office remains committed to defending and upholding California laws and the rights of all students, including transgender students, to be free from discrimination and harassment.

President Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull federal aid from California over various issues — including state programs intended to promote racial diversity and efforts to protect immigrants without legal status from federal immigration enforcement.

Headed to the U.S. Supreme Court

The issue of transgender athletes — in cases not yet involving California — already is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed last week to consider whether federal law bars transgender girls from women’s school sports teams.

Four years ago, West Virginia adopted its Save Women’s Sports Act, but the measure has been blocked as discriminatory by the 4th Circuit Court in 2-1 decision.

“Biological boys should not compete on girls’ athletics teams,” West Virginia Atty. Gen. JB McCuskey said in an appeal the court voted to hear.

Idaho filed a similar appeal after its law was blocked by the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco. The court said it would hear that case together with the West Virginia case.

The appeal had the backing of more than two dozen Republican-led states — as well as support from Trump.

Their supporters express confidence in their prospects before a strongly conservative court majority, but there’s a powerful counter case in defense of California’s laws, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights.

“No court has ever held that federal law requires states to discriminate against transgender students,” Minter said. “The two cases recently taken by the Supreme Court are about whether federal law prohibits states from completely banning transgender students from school sports — not whether federal law mandates discrimination. In our federal system, at a minimum, states that wish to protect transgender students must be free to do so.”

Lawsuit alleges harms to girls

The number of transgender athletes in schools is exceedingly small compared with the total number of girls involved in sports. For that reason — and because of the documented physical- and mental-health benefits of sports participation — LGBTQ+ advocates have accused the Trump administration of scapegoating a vulnerable population for political gain.

They also assert that potentially uncomfortable situations in locker rooms can be managed with sensitivity so that no one feels as though their rights and privacy have been violated.

“This is another example of the administration using a vulnerable group to target a Democratic-led state, all for political theater and to distract from this administration’s disastrous policies for America’s families,” said Kristi Hirst, an LGBTQ+ advocate who is co-founder of the advocacy group Our Schools USA.

The litigation was greeted with support by advocates who insist they are simply protecting girls’ sports.

“This isn’t just policy failure — it’s a civil rights crisis,” said Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified Board of Education and a pro-Trump candidate for state superintendent of public instruction. She said all children are being victimized by a false “gender ideology”: “These boys should never be sent down a path of confusion. Children are born beautiful the way they are. Boys are boys. Girls are girls.”

The lawsuit cites five specific examples of transgender athletes winning races or contributing to winning sports teams such as basketball or volleyball — outcomes it alleges are unfair to those affected.

One example refers to “Student 2” as “a male student athlete competing against female athletes in numerous CIF track and field and cross-country events in California from 2023 to the present with the Riverside Unified School District.”

“In September 2023, Student 2 ran in the 2023 Cool Breeze Invitational and competed against the girls in the large-school sophomore girls’ three-mile-run finals and finished first. Had he competed against the boys in that event, his time would have put him in 115th place.”

The lawsuit also includes allegations that the presence of transgender athletes in locker rooms created an uncomfortable and sometimes hostile environment for girls and women.

In addition, the suit claims that students were improperly denied their right to speak against California rules on transgender participation in girls’ sports.

In an attempt to address the issue of athletes losing out on awards, the CIF moved forward May 27 with a plan that duplicates the awards when a transgender athlete wins a competition.

Under the new process, an athlete who would have won the award receives the same recognition that she would have if the trans athlete had not competed. This practice was applied to a state competition in which AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old transgender junior from Jurupa Valley High School, won multiple medals at the state high school track and field championships.

The new CIF policy does not address team sports, where it’s more difficult to assess the effect of an individual trans athlete. Nor was the policy applied retroactively to rewrite the results of past competitions.

In the lawsuit filing, the Trump administration interprets the new CIF policy as an admission of wrongdoing:

“CIF, through the pilot entry process and its references to ‘biological female,’ has acknowledged the inherent athletic advantage males have over ‘biological female[s]’ and that allowing males to compete in female athletic competitions displaces girls and denies girls equal athletic opportunities.”