California Assembly committee blocks anti-trans athlete bills after emotional hearing
During a passionate hearing Tuesday that drew outspoken, hours-long public comment from both opponents and proponents, California lawmakers blocked a pair of bills spotlighting transgender student-athletes that received renewed attention last month after comments Gov. Gavin Newsom made on his podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom.”
Members from the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism, including Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, heard testimony from two Republican legislators and dozens of concerned members of the public who went to the Capitol to vocally support or oppose the bills.
Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, R-Rancho Santa Margarita, proposed AB 89, which would have required the California Interscholastic Federation to bar trans girls from playing women’s sports in schools. AB 844, sponsored by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona, would overturn a 2013 law that allows California students to use locker rooms and play on sports teams that reflect their gender identity.
Both would have effectively prevented trans student-athletes from playing on teams that reflect their gender identity from elementary school through college.
Republicans said after the hearing that they would resurrect the legislation at a later date, and warned that the issue would continue to present an electoral Achilles’ heel for Democrats after President Donald Trump ran attack ads during the 2024 election that said his opponent “Kamala Harris for they/them. Trump is for you.”
Committee Chair Chris Ward, D-San Diego, initially called the hearing to have a chance to dispel misinformation. He said the bills would subject both cisgender and transgender female athletes to harassment, citing cases in Utah and Idaho where school board members harassed female student-athletes they suspected of being trans.
“The safeguarding of sports isn’t achieved by demonizing one of the smallest parts of the population,” he said during the hearing.
“This hysteria needs to stop.”
‘More measles cases than NCAA trans athletes’
About 122,000 trans teenagers nationwide play sports, a number Rivas, D-Salinas, said did not constitute an “epidemic,” countering a claim Sanchez made when introducing her bill.
“When there are currently more kids with measles in Texas, than there are transgender athletes in the NCAA, that’s the epidemic we should all be worried about,” he said. “I am not going to support a bill that takes away from a protected class here in the state of California...I am not going to turn my back on that.”
The committee voted 7-2 (Sanchez) and 6-2 (Essayli) along party lines to block both bills from moving forward, an expected outcome under the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority.
Still, Newsom emboldened the anti-transgender movement when he told conservative youth movement leader Charlie Kirk on his podcast that he sided with “80% of the country” who disapproved of allowing transgender athletes to compete with cisgender athletes.
Tuesday’s hearing drew advocates from the statewide parental rights movement, including Moms For Liberty, Gays Against Groomers, the Log Cabin Republicans, attorney Erin Friday and celebrity “Daily Wire” pundit Matt Walsh, who has shot a documentary and written books questioning established science on transgender health care.
The supporting side invoked Newsom’s comments multiple times to persuade legislators that they were losing in the court of public opinion.
“Even Gov. Gavin Newsom, considered one of the most pro-LGBTQ governors in our state’s history, said recently, ‘It’s an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,’” Sanchez said during her opening remarks.
Those opposing the bills included Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, Rainbow Alliance, Equality California, and Transfamily Support Services.
Since taking office in January, Trump has issued executive orders denying the existence of transgender people, issued passports with incorrect gender markers, reinstated a military ban, restricted gender-affirming health care, and ordered federal health agencies to stop including trans people in health surveillance data.
Friday, speaking as technical expert for Sanchez’s bill, said she met with U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon and confirmed the agency was investigating the state for allegedly violating educational privacy laws. The investigation cites a Ward-sponsored law that went into effect earlier this year that bars schools from requiring teachers to disclose their students’ gender identity to parents.
She also said California could be found in violation of Title IX’s sex-based anti-discrimination rules for allowing trans athletes to participate in sports, which is currently under litigation.
“They are going to use every tool in their tool kit to ensure that there is safety and dignity for girls in the state of California, and they will withhold funding,” she said. “I can guarantee that.”
Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Hollywood, compared the animus behind the anti-transgender movement to Nazis who first targeted LGBTQ people in the 1930s before moving on to Jewish people during the Holocaust. This rankled Republicans, including Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez, R-Coachella, who said he was “heartbroken” at the comparison.
“What Donald Trump has done, and this administration has done, is a dedicated effort to try to erase and harm our most vulnerable people, transgender people, immigrants, people that are seeking reproductive health care,” Zbur said.
“Our march towards autocracy and fascism in this country is very real. This is part of the right wing playbook to get there, and I want to tell you that I am both saddened and disgusted that this bill was brought today.”
Trump administration v. California
The California Department of Justice has filed to sue or block most Trump administration actions, continuing the same momentum from his first term, when the Golden State sued the White House over 120 times.
McMahon sent Newsom a letter last week encouraging him to support Essayli’s bill, the same day her agency said it was investigating California for potentially violating the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
State leaders have vowed to fight back, but billions of dollars hang in the balance if California is found to have violated FERPA.
“Take a stand on your convictions,” McMahon wrote, referencing Newsom’s comments on his podcast.
“As Secretary of Education, I am officially asking you to inform this Department whether you will remind schools in California to comply with federal law by protecting sex-separated spaces and activities. By doing so, you can ensure that schools will not continue to harm students by facilitating the false belief that sex is mutable and dependent on inner feelings or stereotypes.”
Members of the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, of which Ward is also chair, said McMahon’s letter was based on a “false” and “harmful premise.”
“Requiring governmental school officials to expose (students) without their consent runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution, is immorally invasive, and is counter to overwhelming mental health evidence on the subject,” the caucus said in a statement. “Parents have always retained the right to have meaningful conversation with their children and play a crucial role in their development.”
Newsom defended his signing of the bill as preventing teachers from having to “snitch” on students during a Friday interview with news show host Bill Maher.
“I think teachers should teach,” the governor said. “I don’t think they should be required to turn in kids.”
He also batted away criticism for his anti-trans athletes remarks, claiming that the LGBTQ community was trying to “cancel” him despite being an ally “on almost every critical issue at every critical juncture for decades.”
In a follow up news conference after the hearing, Republicans denounced their Democratic counterparts for not advancing the bills.
Essayli accused Rivas of “gaslighting” Republicans by waving away anxieties over trans athletes as a distraction from other issues like the affordability crisis and gas prices.
“For him to come down and lecture us, who have no power in this house, have no power over the policy of California,” he said. “We want to talk about protecting girls and spaces, safe spaces. They don’t get it. The governor gets it ... They’re going to continue to lose the confidence of the voters and the people of the state and nation if they double down on these policies, which is what they just said.”
Nationally, Democrats are still grappling with how to coalesce around a winning message on the topic of transgender rights.
Newsom, who is considered to be a potential 2028 presidential contender, declined a request for comment.
This story was originally published April 1, 2025 at 2:17 PM.
