Sacramento – California legislators rejected the invoices sponsored by Republicans on Tuesday to limit the participation of Trans High School athletes in girls and women's sports, the last clash in a high -octane debate that continues to divide the nation.
Despite the hours of passionate testimony, the result was never in doubt in a California legislature, where the Democrats have a supermayization and the Republicans have little power.
The point, for both parties, was the energetic debate that took place in the hearing room of the Capitol Ornate on Tuesday morning.
The bill 89 of the Assembly, of the Kate A. Sánchez Assembly (R-Travuco Canyon), would require the California Interestic Federation to prohibit any student whose sex would be assigned to men at birth that compete in a girls' high school team.
The bill 844 of the Assembly, of the Bill Ensayli Assembly (R-Corona) would require students to wear changing rooms, bathrooms and other facilities that coincide with their sex assigned to birth.
After the bills were introduced, the Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego) assembly, who chairs the arts of the Assembly, the Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, said he decided to hold the audience due to the complaints of the Republicans that their problems did not have the opportunity to be heard in the legislature directed by democratic legislation.
The audience attracted a large multitude of partisans to the state capital.
The conservative Council of the California family described him as a “capital confrontation.”
At 8:30 am, 30 minutes before the start time, a spashed line along the hallway outside the audience room, and at 8:45 each seat of the hall was full, with a multitude of strident overflow on the strident on waiting. Among the crowd were Roller Derby athletes, volleyball players, track stars, parents, nurses, doctors, church leaders, members of the school board, teachers and academics. One by one the audience room was allowed to urge legislators to vote the bills up or down.
Around 800,000 of the 1.76 million high school students in California participate in school athletics. The CIF, which supervises the sports of high school in the state, does not maintain records about how many of these students are transgender, but experts say the number is small. At the university level, less than 10 of half a million athletes are transgender, according to the recent testimony of the Congress of the NCAA officials.
Even so, the issue of trans athletes in sports has been explosive in national politics. Republicans who have taken over the subject portray it as a deeply unfair example of the “Wake” policy go crazy. President Trump cited the issue frequently in the campaign last year and in February he signed a Executive order That “would terminate all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
Meanwhile, many on the left say it affects a tiny number of athletes. Instead of focusing on a real problem, politicians confiscated an odious and hysterical attack against trans people to advance a larger conservative agenda.
Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom, a prominent democrat and for a long time an open defender of LGBTQ+problems, touched the debate when he called for the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports “deeply unfair” in his podcast.
Republicans have been amplifying their comments since then. When he presented his bill during the audience, Sánchez cited Newsom to illustrate that concerns about trans girls in sports “were not a marginal problem.”
“Let's be clear. It's not about hate. It's not about fear. And they are not points of right conversation,” he said.
Sánchez, who described herself as a passionate volleyball player in her youth, spoke of the losers of the girls in teams and, in some cases, she suffered injuries during the games due to the trans athletes competing unfairly against them.
“This is completely justice, security and integrity,” he said.
Sánchez brought with him an athlete athlete of the high school, which did not provide his full name, who told the legislators that his dreams of completing at the upper levels had been annulled because a “biological man” in his team had hit her.
“It feels bad,” he said. “I don't understand how my hard work, my dedication … can go without meaning.”
It was among the dozens of speakers who appeared before the legislators, and when the hours of testimony were carried out, the elected officials voted in the lines of the party to reject the bills.
“You are using our most vulnerable students as a political Cudgel,” said Rick Chavez Zbur assembly (D-Los Angeles), pointing out studies that show that transgender students run a higher risk of suicide and abandoning school. He added that trans students have been participating in high school sports for a decade with little fanfare, but only recently became a problem.
The president of the Assembly, Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), who made a surprise appearance to complete at the hearing of an absent member, said the bills were unnecessary.
“There is no epidemic of transgender children who play basketball or football or any other sport,” he said. “There are more children at this time with measles in Texas than transgender athletes in the NCAA. That is the epidemic that everyone should be worried.”
But Republicans said the problem is justice, and several speakers make the point that girls are suffering as a result of allowing trans athletes in their teams. Republicans also warned that California's support for Trans athletes puts the State at risk of losing billions of dollars in federal funds because conflict with the president's executive order.
“There is a biological reality,” said Essayli, who pointed to a young athletic athlete from his district who, according to him, was eliminated from a place in a superior team by a trans athlete. “It is a matter of justice.”
After the hearing, the republican members of the Legislature held a press conference to exclaim Democrats for blocking an additional debate on two bills that, they said, the surveys show that most California voters agree. Several also said that the Democrats in the committee had just put the California educational funds in a collision course with the Trump administration.
“For defending common sense, they called us Nazis,” said Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). “What we are talking about is to defend young women in the state of California.”
