The Trump administration goes after California following a 16-year-old trans athlete’s victories in a state observe and discipline championship over the weekend.
The 16-year-old, AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley Excessive Faculty in Riverside County, has made headlines and been on the middle of protests in current months merely for competing.
Regardless of protests on Saturday, Hernandez gained first place within the ladies’ excessive soar and triple soar on the State Observe and Area Championships at Buchanan Excessive Faculty in Clovis, California. Hernandez additionally completed second within the lengthy soar.
However due to a brand new rule instituted by the California Interscholastic Federation, a number of different pupil athletes additionally obtained medals within the classes that Hernandez competed in. As such, Jillene Wetteland and Lelani Laruelle additionally gained first place within the excessive soar, and Kira Gant Hatcher additionally gained first within the triple soar. Brooke White additionally positioned second within the lengthy soar.
“A Organic Male competed in California Women State Finals, WINNING BIG, even supposing they had been warned by me not to take action. As Governor Gavin Newscum totally understands, massive scale fines can be imposed!!!” the president wrote on Reality Social on Monday.
On the identical day, Harmeet Okay. Dhillon, the pinnacle of the Civil Rights Division on the Division of Justice, despatched a transphobic letter to public faculty districts in California claiming that the state’s regulation permitting college students to compete in sports activities primarily based on their gender id moderately than the id assigned to them at start is “facially unconstitutional.”
“The Equal Safety Clause of the Fourteenth Modification to the USA Structure prohibits discrimination on the premise of intercourse,” Dhillon, a authorized adviser to Trump, an anti-voting rights and anti-LGBTQ rights extremist, argued within the letter. “Knowingly depriving feminine college students of athletic alternatives and advantages on the premise of their intercourse would represent unconstitutional intercourse discrimination underneath the Equal Safety Clause.”
“Scientific proof reveals that upsetting the historic establishment and forcing ladies to compete in opposition to males would deprive them of athletic alternatives and advantages due to their intercourse,” she additionally wrote, with out clarifying the place to search out the proof.
The letter offers California every week to fall according to the Justice Division’s interpretation of the Equal Safety Clause, which appears to enrich Trump’s February govt order.
Trump’s order goals to dam “male aggressive participation in ladies’s sports activities” and “rescind all funds from instructional applications that deprive ladies and ladies of honest athletic alternatives.”
In a letter to superintendents and directors within the state on Tuesday, Tony Thurmond, the California superintendent of public instruction, reportedly stated that the division would overview the request and reply by June 9, however that the letter isn’t the regulation.
Based on The Athletic, Thurmond argued that the Equal Safety Clause “doesn’t require that athletic groups be segregated by ‘organic intercourse.’”
“The DOJ assertions usually are not in themselves regulation, and the letter by itself can’t be an enforcement mechanism,” Thurmond additionally reportedly stated.
The information comes after the California Interscholastic Federation, California’s highschool sports activities governing physique, expanded eligibility for the 2025 CIF State Observe and Area Championships moderately than excluding anybody from the competitors.
“The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we are going to proceed to uphold our mission of offering college students with the chance to belong, join, and compete whereas complying with California regulation and Schooling Code,” the group continued.
On Sunday, Nereyda Hernandez, AB Hernandez’s mother, instructed native outlet KCRA that she was a Trump supporter, however her daughter’s perspective and therapy modified her views.
“Simply speaking to AB, and I began analyzing issues in another way,” Nereyda Hernandez stated. “It’s an excessive amount of for me as a result of we’re individuals and I don’t really feel we’re being handled as such.”
She additionally instructed KCRA that the protests throughout her daughter’s large day had been somewhat distracting, however that she was “pleased with her.”
“A child is extra mature than numerous these adults placing her on this scenario. So I’m simply completely satisfied, yeah, I might brag. That’s my child,” she added.
Representatives for the Jurupa Unified Faculty District and the California Interscholastic Federation, respectively, didn’t instantly reply to JHB’s request for remark.