by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
About 60 students walked out of morning classes on Oct. 1 to protest their high school’s policy allowing male students who identify as transgender to use girls’ bathrooms, in Anaheim, California.
Joining the students at a press conference at Esperanza High School, opponents of state polices allowing transgender-identifying males to compete in girls’ and women’s sports and use female bathrooms and locker rooms said it’s time for the Trump administration to follow through on its threats to withhold federal funding from schools accused of violating Title IX.
Sophia Lorey, outreach director at California Family Council and former college soccer athlete, told The Epoch Times the federal government “should start pulling and withholding federal funding, especially in states such as California that “continue to put girls in harm’s way.”
“It’s time that these lawsuits start playing out,” Lorey said following the press conference.
Although many parents believe Title IX violations aren’t an issue if their children aren’t playing sports, she said, the walkout showed that all girls in high school who simply want to safely use the restroom are affected, Lorey said.
California lawmakers in 2013 passed Assembly Bill 1266, which allowed males who identify as transgender to use girls’ restrooms.
At the walkout—attended by about 35 female and 25 male students—Lorey accused state lawmakers of failing to protect girls.
“These students have taken it into their own hands to lead a student walkout, to stand strong and say they are not OK with boys in the girls’ restrooms,” she said.
The girls voiced concerns about a male student using the girls’ bathroom, and that it makes them feel uncomfortable and unsafe.
Lesley Ledesma, a junior student who led the walkout, said a transgender-identifying male has been using the girls’ restrooms. And, when she complained to the school administrators, she was told that if she felt uncomfortable sharing the bathroom with him, she could use the one in the nurse’s office instead.
“This felt like a slap in the face to me,” she said. “As a young woman who has used the girls’ bathroom my entire life, I was now being asked to step aside. It didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel respectful. It felt like my concerns, and the concerns of other girls, were being overlooked.”
Ledesma, who has attended Esperanza since her freshman year, said the incident stripped away the sense of safety she once felt at school.
“Everyone deserves dignity,” she said. “But dignity cannot come at the cost of someone else’s sense of safety. We must find a solution that protects the rights and feelings of all students, not just some.”
Eddie Ledesma, her brother, said it’s hard to watch his sister struggle.
“I want her and all the other girls here to feel safe in a place [that] should be private,” he said. “This isn’t about hate. It’s about respect.”
Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley Unified school board president and a parental rights advocate, said at the walkout that because gender ideology has been normalized to the point where girls are told to sacrifice their privacy, safety, and dignity to accommodate boys in restrooms, the fight to protect girls has become a nationwide effort.
“This isn’t progress. This is regression. This is hate on girls,” she said. “This is the hill that we will die on to protect our kids. We are done. We’re not playing these games.”
If California continues to push gender ideology in schools, the problem will only get worse, she said.
“We have allowed radicals and special interests to push this madness, and too many officials have stayed silent or defended policies that put children at risk.”
Shaw said via text message to The Epoch Times following the press conference that “it’s not just time to consider withholding federal funding, it’s already time to act.”
The governor, state legislators, California Interscholastic Federation, and “too many school boards,” she said, have made it very clear they’re not budging on this issue.
“Title IX was written to protect girls, not erase them,” Shaw said. “If schools and states refuse to comply with that, then federal funding should be pulled.”
President Donald Trump’s executive orders recognize two sexes—male and female—and make it clear that only females belong in girls’ and women’s sports and in female bathrooms and locker rooms.
“‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity,’” read Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
“‘Gender identity’ reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.”
The president also signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” in February.
The two orders reversed Biden-era Title IX policies and reinstated regulations from Trump’s first term as president. The back-and-forth changes in regulations have led to legal disputes about Title IX interpretation and enforcement.
The Trump administration on Sept. 30 warned of legal action against the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League for allegedly failing to comply with Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs.
In June, the U.S. Department of Education concluded its Title IX investigations into the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation for allegations of discrimination against women and girls on the basis of sex. In both cases, the California Department of Education and the Interscholastic Federation were found to be in violation, and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the Trump administration would “relentlessly enforce Title IX protections for women and girls.”
The California Department of Education has authority over California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees 1.8 million high school students and more than 750,000 student-athletes, according to the DOJ.
In July, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a lawsuit against California, alleging the state’s laws promoting transgender athletes violate Title IX by depriving girls of equal athletic opportunities.
“California is on the wrong side of the law and the wrong side of history,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. “Women deserve dignity, respect, and an equal opportunity to compete on their own sports teams. The time for talk is over. California must comply with Title IX and end its civil rights violations against women.”
Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, an LGBT civil rights group, said in June that the federal education department’s findings were “a dangerous distortion of Title IX and a direct attack on transgender youth in California.”
“Let’s be clear: this isn’t about fairness in sports and never has been — it’s about a federal administration weaponizing civil rights laws to target transgender students and force California to comply with their hateful anti-transgender agenda,” Hoang wrote in a statement. “Transgender youth belong in our schools, on our teams, and in our communities — without apology and without exception.”
The governor’s office did not respond to an inquiry by publication time.
In his own podcast aired in March, Newsom told his guest, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last month at a college campus in Utah, that allowing men to compete in women’s sports is “deeply unfair.”
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener praised Newsom for his past efforts to defend and support people in the LGBT community and criticized the governor for the remark.
The governor has since discussed fairness in sports, while opposing federal attempts to roll back state laws and policies.
