A biological male swept two out of three state titles at the California state track and field championships on Saturday, sparking backlash from Republican groups who accused California’s Democratic congressional delegation of failing to advocate for fairness in female athletics.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez won first place in the high school girls’ high and triple jump championship events — at one of the most competitive meets in the country — while placing second in the long jump. Though California’s sports governing body instituted last-minute changes to accommodate female athletes who could have been bumped down a ranking by a male competitor, House Republicans’ campaign arm blasted the state’s congressional Democrats for failing to denounce California’s ongoing defiance of President Trump’s executive order on women’s sports.
“Radical, out of touch vulnerable Democrats in California are so obsessed with identity politics, they’d rather sacrifice female athletes than upset their activist base,” NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They’re not just ignoring common sense, they’re shoving it off the podium right alongside California biological female athletes. It’s cowardly and disgraceful.”
The DCNF reached out to five California House Democrats who sit in competitive seats that the NRCC is seeking to flip during the midterms: Democratic Reps. Adam Gray, Josh Harder, Derek Tran, George Whitesides and David Min.
Gray and Harder are two of the 13 House Democrats who won districts that President Donald Trump also carried in November and are considered to be vulnerable to Republican challengers.
The five House Democrats did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment about whether they support the California Interscholastic Federation continuing to allow biological males to compete in high school female athletics despite Trump’s executive order.
The president signed an executive order in February that would cut federal funding to schools that refuse to bar biological males from competing in girls and women’s sports. California has thus far not complied with the executive order, citing a 2013 state law that allows transgender athletes to compete in sport teams and categories that align with their gender identity.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to California public school districts Monday threatening legal action if the state continues to permit biological males to participate in high school female athletics.
The administration and congressional Republicans have blasted California and other Democratic-led states for allowingtransgender athletes to compete in women’s sports and failing to stand up for female athletes’ Title IX rights to compete against members of their own biological sex.
Gray, Harder, Tran and Min notably voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act in February barring transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports. Whitesides did not vote.
Min called the women’s sports bill “a sad political stunt that cynically uses our universities, our elementary schools and our kids as pawns,” citing a provision of the bill that would bar federal funding to schools whose athletic programs allow transgender athletes to compete in female athletics.
Trump slammed California for its continued defiance in refusing to adhere to his executive order prohibiting biological males to participate in girls and women’s sports, using a pejorative name to refer to California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
“A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after midnight on Tuesday. “As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!”
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