L.\u2019s son is now a junior at an Oakland public high school and, thanks to that policy, has been playing varsity sports for two years. Since his transition, he has been private about his gender identity, L. said, so she asked to be identified by only her first initial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has always felt supported and welcomed and part of his team,\u201d L. told The Oaklandside. In retrospect, L. said, she was \u201cnaively confident\u201d that this welcome would continue. In recent years, the question of whether transgender students can compete as they choose has been swallowed up in a national culture war stoked by the Trump administration, with voices on the right advocating for bans of transgender athletes from the sports field, the locker room, the bathroom, the curriculum, and, arguably, from civic life.<\/p>\n
The California Interscholastic Federation had been well ahead of the curve, adopting its inclusion policy several months before the California state legislature acted to protect the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming students \u2014 which itself was the first law of its kind in the nation.<\/p>\n
Then came Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 election, and a series of attacks. First, an investigation<\/a> by Trump\u2019s department of education, claiming CIF\u2019s policy discriminated against girls \u2014 then a federal lawsuit<\/a> threatening to withhold $44 billion from California\u2019s Department of Education if CIF didn\u2019t change the policy.<\/p>\n Never miss a story. Sign up for The Oaklandside\u2019s free daily newsletter.<\/p>\n The day the investigation was publicly announced last May, the federation reacted, issuing a hasty \u201cpilot process<\/a>\u201d just as high school track and field star AB Hernandez, an openly transgender girl, was on the verge of qualifying to compete in the state championship. For every event in which Hernandez was one of the 12 to qualify, CIF said, a 13th \u201cbiological female\u201d would be allowed to compete; every medal she won would be shared by the next ranking \u201cbiological female.\u201d<\/p>\n Arne Johnson, a leader of Rainbow Families Action<\/a>, a community of Bay Area parents of transgender youth and their allies, said no one has been able to figure out who authored the pilot, which bypassed CIF\u2019s normal deliberative processes.<\/p>\n Rebecca Brutlag, a spokesperson for CIF, did not respond to a query about how that process unfolded.<\/p>\n Hernandez, then a junior at Jurupa Valley High in Southern California, reached the podium three times last June, in the high jump, long jump, and triple jump; each time she had to share her medal. She was subjected to jeers; a plane flew over, pulling a banner that read \u201cNo boys in girls\u2019 sports!\u201d; Trump posted disparaging remarks<\/a> on Truth Social.<\/p>\n To transgender athletes and their families, it felt like CIF had betrayed them. \u201cIt\u2019s saying to the world, \u2018You\u2019re not a girl,\u2019\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt\u2019s very harsh to a single person and to all the trans kids watching.\u201d<\/p>\n About a month after the track and field championships, the other shoe dropped: the Department of Justice filed its suit against CIF<\/a> and the California Department of Education, citing Trump\u2019s executive order on \u201cgender ideology extremism\u201d and Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s now notorious remarks to Charlie Kirk that the inclusion of trans girls in sports was \u201cdeeply unfair.\u201d The suit\u2019s core claim is that the federation\u2019s inclusion policy violated Title IX \u2014 the 1972 civil rights law that had opened the floodgates for gender inclusion in the worlds of sports and higher education.<\/p>\n That clause, scholars say<\/a>, was now being weaponized in the name of exclusion.<\/p>\n A message to \u2018quietly accept discrimination\u2019<\/p>\n On Friday, CIF\u2019s leadership \u2014 dozens of athletic directors, coaches, principals, and superintendents from across the state \u2014 huddled at the Oakland Marriott\u2019s conference center for their quarterly meeting. In practical haircuts and navy blazers, they listened silently as parents, grandparents, coaches, clergy and students from Rainbow Families Action stepped up to a podium to offer public comment, including L.\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n Their remarks captured the intense stress that these attacks have put on gender nonconforming kids \u2014 and what it feels like to become a political punching bag.<\/p>\n \u201cWe learned that there are vocal antitrans activists who have been coming to CIF meetings for at least a year, bombarding them with antitrans messaging,\u201d L. told The Oaklandside. \u201cWhile we applaud and appreciate CIF\u2019s inclusive rule, we also want them to understand how harmful the pilot policy is and how positive sports are for our children.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, according to Johnson, who was there, a handful of activists from a group called Moms for Liberty<\/a> had shown up at the Marriott to speak as well \u2014 in their case at an executive committee session on Thursday. One, according to those present, was a woman named Beth Bourne who heads up the organization\u2019s Yolo County chapter and has become notorious for stripping at public meetings<\/a> in an apparent effort to convey the experience of being in a school locker room. Johnson said she stripped to her underwear for CIF\u2019s executive leadership as well; Bourne did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cAll his life, sports have been a source of joy and belonging,\u201d L. said of her son in her testimony, delivered anonymously. \u201cHe has been welcomed by his teammates, competitors and coaches alike. Being part of a boys team has been an affirming anchor, an external confirmation of his place in his community and of the gender that is an inherent part of who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n She said that competing in CIF sports, he learned the federation\u2019s core principles, of trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and good citizenship. \u201cBut because he is trans, he\u2019s learned some other things, too,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s learned [to] quietly accept discrimination directed at him. He\u2019s learned that there are people who think his existence is indecent. He\u2019s learned that there are adults who consider emotional harm to him and kids like him a price they are happy to pay to score a political point.\u201d<\/p>\n Beth Hossfeld, a Bay Area family therapist and the grandmother of two transgender children, underlined the consequences of this kind of exclusion and stigma. \u201cWith regard to mental health,\u201d she said, \u201cwe know that acceptance for who you are, belonging and full and equal participation are essential and foundational to the well-being of all youth, and this includes trans children.\u201d<\/p>\n Student No. 3 speaks out<\/p>\n The Trump Justice Department\u2019s lawsuit, filed in July of last year, lists five young people, labeled Students 1 through 5, whom the DOJ attorneys claimed had displaced \u201cgirl athletes.\u201d Each athlete is misgendered in the complaint, and the descriptions are carelessly littered with identifying details, including the students\u2019 school districts, sports, and specific events they competed in. The day after it was filed, the Family Research Council, a leading organization on the Christian right, published a story outing four of the five athletes by name \u2014 again misgendering each of them, and leveling accusations against one, a sprinter named Lily, that other students had found changing in the locker room with her \u201ctraumatizing.\u201d<\/p>\n Lily and her father, Trevor Norcross, a leader of the Gala Pride & Diversity Center, were among the Bay Area families who offered testimony in Oakland on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is funny is that Lily goes out of her way to avoid locker rooms and bathrooms,\u201d Trevor told The Oaklandside. He said that she\u2019d taken PE during summer sessions to avoid changing in the school locker room, and that if she needs to use the restroom at school, she\u2019ll typically wait until class starts and ask for a hall pass so she\u2019s more likely to be alone there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lily was the first to speak on Friday, introducing herself by name and beginning, \u201cI am Student No. 3 in the DOJ lawsuit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last year, I have dealt with an unimaginable amount of hate and harassment,\u201d she said. \u201cMultiple people at my school have threatened to murder me. I can\u2019t go a single day without being harassed. But I still choose to run track.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re probably confused why I don\u2019t just quit,\u201d she continued. \u201cRunning track is one of the only things I genuinely enjoy and feel comfortable and safe doing.\u2026 When I was leaving an extremely toxic and abusive friend group, track was there for me. When I was slandered on Fox News, track was there for me. No matter what, track was there for me, is there for me, and will be there for me. If you ban trans people from participating in sports\u2026you are denying each and every one of your gender queer constituents the ability to feel safe and to be accepted by others in a time where harassment against trans people has reached unprecedented heights.\u201d<\/p>\n Fish, a coach and former professional soccer player who competed for the Australian side Canberra United, came to deliver a message from Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach, former US national team players, Hall of Famers, and prominent figures in the fight for gender equity in sports.<\/p>\n \u201cFor months, people have been speaking for us, claiming that they are protecting girls\u2019 sports, deciding whose bodies qualify for girlhood, and spinning the narrative that girls are fragile, inferior or in need of saving,\u201d Fish said on their behalf. \u201cWe\u2019re here to say we don\u2019t need your saving\u2026.We need dignity, autonomy and safety. California has protected trans students\u2019 rights to participate in sports for over a decade, and during that time, girls\u2019 participation has grown. Inclusion does not weaken girls\u2019 sports, it strengthens them.\u201d<\/p>\n The CIF track and field finals are set to begin on May 29 in Clovis, and Hernandez, now a high school senior, is again expected to be competitive in several jumping events. So far, the federation has been quiet about whether it has left its controversial pilot policy behind and will allow Hernandez to compete equally.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, California attorney general Rob Bonta has asked a judge to dismiss<\/a> the DOJ\u2019s suit against CIF, noting that the government\u2019s interpretation of Title IX has never been upheld by the Ninth Circuit and that Trump\u2019s executive orders \u201ccannot themselves amend Title IX.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_8094-1600x1200.jpeg\")
Activists with Rainbow Families Action gather inside the Oakland Marriott on Friday, April 24, 2026. Credit: Esther Kaplan\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n