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The state’s high school championships begin on Friday as intense debate swirls around one athlete’s participation. Questions remain about how the podium and team points will be handled.
May 30, 2025Updated 1:27 p.m. ET
California has allowed transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports for more than a decade at schools, but the state’s approach has never been tested the way it will be this week.
On Friday, a transgender girl is set to compete against California’s top female athletes in three events at the state track and field meet, which will be held over two days in Clovis, near Fresno.
President Trump on Tuesday threatened to withhold federal funding from California if the state did not bar the trans girl from competition. Civil rights advocates responded by defending her and denouncing the threat from Mr. Trump as bullying behavior.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has supported transgender rights in the past, said this year that he finds the participation of trans girls in girls’ sports “deeply unfair.” Yet Mr. Newsom said he could not come up with a fair way to satisfy everyone this spring.
This week, the California Interscholastic Federation, the entity that organizes the state meet, made its own last-minute attempt to address how to keep sports fair without excluding any student athlete.
The federation said Tuesday that it would allow additional athletes to qualify for the state meet if they had been bumped out of a spot by a transgender girl. At least two competitors were added to the starting lists of the trans girl’s events, according to a longtime coach in the state.
