California's high school athletics' playoff and championship governing body, commonly known in the Golden State as CIF, hastily took action in the wake of the threat this week by Donald Trump of pulling funding, perhaps permanently, from California if biological boys were allowed to continue competing against biological girls. 

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is pretty straightforward when it comes to discrimination in high school and college athletics, and more importantly, equal opportunity. Congress has a pretty good primer of what Title IX covers. 

Separate Athletics Teams

While Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in recipient schools’ athletics programs, this prohibition does not mean all sex-based distinctions are banned. According to Title IX regulations, schools may offer separate athletics teams for each sex where selection is based on competitive skill or the activity is a contact sport. In addition, subject to the obligations described below, while schools must provide equal athletics opportunity to members of both sexes, they do not necessarily need to offer the same sports for each sex. Even so, if a school only offers a sport for one sex, and opportunities for the other sex have been previously limited, a student from the excluded sex must be allowed to try out for the team unless it is a contact sport. (Contact sports include boxing, wrestling, rugby, ice hockey, football, and basketball.) In addition, Title IX does not require equal aggregate expenditures for men’s and women’s athletics programs.

The long and short of it is if you offer a competitive sport for boys, you have to offer an equivalent sport or opportunity for girls. Note that the equivalent sports do not have to be the exact same sport if the exposure of harm to girls, being that they're not boys and all, makes it unsafe for them to participate. The law recognizes that equal opportunity does not mean boys and girls are exactly the same. There are some boys sports, like football, that girls should not, and are not, included on those teams. Girls' flag football? You bet. 

Among the hundreds of executive orders signed by Donald Trump since January 20th, there was one formalized on February 5th with a lot of female athletes of all ages surrounding him as he autographed the document without the use of Anthony Bernal's autopen. 

President Trump signs Executive Order banning boys from girls' sports

Young Girl: "God bless you, Mr. President."

This is what it's all about. pic.twitter.com/uI6WzcSTme

— George (@BehizyTweets) February 5, 2025

Shortly after, a defiant Maine Governor Janet Mills dug in her heels, refusing to restrict athletics in her state to competitions between members with the same chromosome makeup. The full weight of the federal government, including withholding federal funding, ensued. The courts are currently chewing through it, but the prospects do not look good for Mills long-term. Nobody thinks Title IX is going to be overturned by the Supreme Court anytime soon. 

In California, there is a boy named A.B. Hernandez who is a junior, currently competing in three different track events as a girl. Naturally, he's been dominating the field and has qualified for the state final. Here's a little taste of Hernandez in action.

NEW: Transgender long jumper wins the CIF Southern Section Masters meet, continues to dominate the female competition.

Hernandez, who was born a male, jumped 19’ 3.5’’. The “second” place jumper, Kaylee Best, a female, jumped 19’ .75’’.

During a recent interview, Hernandez said… pic.twitter.com/TpvYFAvA7j

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 25, 2025

YES. 🔥@AAGDhillon and @USAttyEssayli are investigating California for letting boys compete in girls’ sports.

The Trump administration is cracking down on this insanity. 👏pic.twitter.com/ijO8jl1pvW

— American Principles 🇺🇸 (@approject) May 28, 2025

President Trump got wind of it and threated to pull money, perhaps permanently, from California if they continued to violate both his executive order and Title IX.

pic.twitter.com/2JTlGvdoqu

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 27, 2025

California's Governor, Gavin Newsom, who looks in the mirror every morning and sees POTUS-48 staring back at him, who loves standing up to Republican archvillains such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and President Trump, folded like a $40 dollar lawn chair six hours later. I know $40 dollars seems outrageously high for a cheap lawn chair, but this is California. We're about to pay hotel and airport worked in Los Angeles a $30 minimum wage. Nothing is cheap.

Newsom is a progressive, a radical, and totally devoid of sound economic theory, but he's not a dummy. He knows which way the wind is blowing on the trans athlete issue nationally, and he also knows his state's deficit is currently in the red by upwards of $12 billion dollars. If Trump were to follow through and yank somewhere north of $17 billion just in K-12 funding alone, much less federal money given to colleges and universities, California goes bankrupt overnight. There is no way to replace that with current governance. 

The Governor appeared on a podcast with Salem host Charlie Kirk a while ago in an effort to rebrand himself for a future national presidential campaign, and signaled he was willing to walk away from the trans-athlete controversy. 

Gavin Newsom knows it is unfair to have boys competing against girls in sports. He just doesn’t have the spine to do anything about it.

Fortunately, for girls in California President Trump does. pic.twitter.com/DXbD2NVqJI

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) May 27, 2025

So with the Governor getting wobbly knees well before the funding threat by Trump, when the warning finally did drop on Truth Social and X Tuesday morning, CIF decided to change a rule very quickly. 

At the conclusion of the CIF Section’s Track and Field qualifying meets this past weekend, the CIF made the decision to pilot an entry process for the upcoming 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships. Please see the following statement: pic.twitter.com/qOjWl6eybR

— CIF State (@CIFState) May 27, 2025

Notice what's admitted to in the second paragraph by CIF. Any biological girl who lost a shot to compete because of a transgendered boy knocked them out of the bubble sure sounds to me like CIF is conceding the points that A) biological girls are not the same as boys identifying as transgendered girls, and B) offering a remedy, even in haste, demonstrates there were girls harmed by the previous policy. You can almost see the vision in your head of a brand-new track event - the 100-meter discriminatory lawsuit filing.

While a baby step in the right direction, this rule change alone isn't nearly enough, and it doesn't really fix the problem in the track finals taking place this weekend, let alone across the board in every girls' sport. Who wants to be the mom or dad that has to have the conversation with their daughter that it's great you got to compete, but sorry you ended up being one of 9 other losers instead watching 8 other losers from the stands? 

Left unsaid in this flurry of CIF rule-making activity is what about all the other sports. So far, this only talks about the track and field state finals. What about a 6'9" boy pitching on the girls' softball team and throwing 10 mph faster than any girl? What about boys playing on girls' volleyball teams and leaping feet above what girls can jump? Nothing from CIF as of yet. Perhaps it'll take another Trump threat to motivate them to revisit the rules in every other Title IX sport, too. 

And speaking of the rule-making process, CIF seems to not have followed their own rule-making rules. 
 

My message to the CIF Executive Director Ron Nocetti @CIFState @CIFNocetti,

Mr. Nocetti, could you tell me who at CIF made these changes to this weekend’s CA state track and field championship meet?

If government and elected officials were involved (school board trustees and… https://t.co/HG9DK2EBkt pic.twitter.com/OrRgFxjSll

— Beth Bourne (@bourne_beth2345) May 28, 2025

I can promise you that in the six hours between Trump's tweet and the rule change by CIF, there was not a formal agenda drawn up, and public notice given of a public hearing to discuss the rule change, as California's Brown Act requires. I guess rule of law is only demanded when Republicans are in power. 

Very shortly after CIF tweaked the rule, Governor Newsom weighed in on the change, and revised it. 

It’s what has been asked for. Separate categories.
So will the trans athlete have a separate podium now?
Girls won’t have to share the podium? pic.twitter.com/2I5YZnLMVf

— Kel in Cali (@KinCali1) May 27, 2025

He pulled a Jedi mind trick. That wasn't the rule change you thought it was. What CIF meant, Newsom said, was there would now be three divisions for this upcoming track meet - boys, girls, and where necessary, trans. There might be three different winners at a podium ceremony. It remains unclear about whether trans athletes would compete amongst themselves, or whether CIF would still lump them in with the girls and just score them separately. If trans and girls have to compete together, but are scored and rewarded differently, isn't that the nonsensical Separate But Equal doctrine of Plessy V. Ferguson that gave us Jim Crow laws in the South before being overturned by Brown V. Board 58 years later? 

And on what authority does Newsom have to inject himself here? Absolutely none. CIF is a bottom-up organization staffed and organized on recommendations from local school districts and county superintendents. There are no gubernatorial appointments on the senior membership of the federation. But by Wednesday morning, CIF, upon further review of Governor Newsom, clarified their rules. 

The CIF State office has issued a followup to their statement on Tuesday about the state track meet this weekend. pic.twitter.com/Djcove4KMW

— James Escarcega 📈🏈🏀⚾️🥎 🤼🤽🏽‍♂️🏊🏼‍♀️🏌🏻⚽️ (@James_Escarcega) May 28, 2025

Looks like separate but equal is now a thing, at least in track. Still unclear whether the events are now broken into three groups as they should. 

Democrats throughout this entire process have managed to anger and alienate girls, parents of girls, teams, schools, the law, and now, the LGBTQ community. 

“California is basically instituting a sports ban… It is a remarkable capitulation to Trump,” trans journalist Erin Reed wrote via Bluesky on Tuesday. By Reed’s reasoning, even though Hernandez will still be allowed to compete, the state has discriminated against Hernandez by placing her in her own competitive category and no longer treat her like all other girls. 

“A limited ban is still a sports ban,” she continued, adding, “This blatantly violates [California] civil rights protections around gender identity. I hope they take it to court.”

To me, the obvious reason you're seeing all these boys competing in girls' events at high school and collegiate levels is because they have an enormous competitive advantage, and for relatively little training and effort, they enjoy very high odds of winning and setting records no other girl will ever touch. If you put trans athletes in a category of their own, you might have one trans athlete competing in triple jump. Obviously, that athlete stands a good chance of standing atop the podium, albeit alone. Congrats. You beat...no one. If a scenario develops where there is a statewide final of 8 trans athletes all competing for an event, my guess is over time, the novelty wears off. And with the allure of dominating the field against the girls no longer being a motivating factor, many will be dissuaded from competing in the first place, and this issue will recede from societal relevance. 

If we are to keep in compliance with Title IX, and for that matter, common sense, there should be boys competing against other boys in boys' events, girls against other girls in girls' events, and let those who refuse to adhere to biological science compete against other science deniers. That new third grouping might actually make the track meet a little more money as it'll signal a visit the concession stand. It will be the athletic version of a drum solo at a rock concert. 

Regardless, all three groups should have their own locker rooms for privacy, something not addressed in the revised CIF or Newsom rules, and all given equal opportunity to compete. And may the best man, woman, or, well, you know, win.