The California legislative committee rejects the limits of trans athletes

Sacramento – California legislators rejected bills sponsored by the Republicans on Tuesday to limit the participation of trans secondary athletes in the sports of girls and women, the last confrontation in a high -octaneous debate which continues to divide the nation.

Despite hours of passionate testimony, the result has never been really in question in a California legislature where Democrats have a supermajority and the Republicans have little power.

The point, for both parties, was the fiery debate that took place in the courtroom of the Capitol ornate Tuesday morning.

Bill 89 of the Assembly, assembly Kate A. Sanchez (R-Trabuco Canyon), would oblige the interscolaire Federation of California to prohibit any student whose sex was responsible for birth of the birth of competition in a high school team for girls.

Bill 844 of the Assembly, the assembly Bill Essayli (R-Corona), would force students to use changing rooms, bathrooms and other facilities that correspond to their gender attributed to birth.

After the bills were presented, the member of the Assembly Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego), who chairs the Committee of Arts, Entertainment, Sport and Tourism of the Assembly, said that he had decided to hold the audience because of the complaints of the Republicans according to which their problems had not had the opportunity to be heard in the legislature led by the Democrats.

The hearing attracted a large crowd of supporters in the state capital.

The Council of the Conservative California family described it as “capital confrontation”.

At 8:30 am – 30 minutes before departure time – a line served along the corridor outside the courtroom, and at 8:45 am, each seat in the corridor was filled, with a crowd of noisy overflow outside while waiting to speak. Among the crowd, there were roller derby athletes, volleyball players, track stars, parents, nurses, doctors, church chiefs, members of the school board, teachers and academics. One by one, they were authorized to enter the courtroom to urge legislators to vote on bills.

About 800,000 of the 1.76 million California high school students participate in school athletics. The CIF, which oversees secondary school sports in the state, does not hold registers on the number of these transgender students, but the experts say that the number is low. At the college level, less than 10 half a million athletes are transgender, according to recent testimonies from the Congress of NCAA officials.

However, the question of trans athletes in sport has been explosive for months in national politics. The Republicans who seized the question describe him as a deeply unfair example of “awake” politics take place. President Trump frequently cited the problem on the tracking of the campaign last year and in February signed a executive decree This would “cancel all the educational programs funds that deprive women and girls of fair sports opportunities”.

Many on the left, on the other hand, say that this affects a tiny number of athletes. Instead of focusing on a real problem, they say, politicians have seized a hateful and hysterical attack against trans people to advance a wider conservative program.

Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom, an eminent democrat and a frank supporter of LGBTQ +questions, scrambled the debate when he qualified the participation of transgender athletes of “deeply unfair” female sports on his podcast.

Since then, the Republicans have amplified his comments. When she presented her bill at the hearing, Sanchez cited Newsom to illustrate that the concerns about trans girls in sport were “not a fringe problem”.

“Let’s be clear. It’s not about hatred. It’s not about fear. And these are not right-wing discussion points,” she said.

Sanchez, who described herself as a player passionate about volleyball in her youth, spoke of the coveted places of girls in the teams and, in some cases, undergoing injuries during the matches because of the trans athletes who made it unjustly competition.

“It is entirely equity, security and integrity,” she said.

Sanchez brought with her a high school track athlete, who did not provide her full name, who told legislators that her dreams of finishing at higher levels had been canceled because a “biological man” of her team had beaten him.

“It’s bad,” she said. “I do not understand how my hard work, my dedication … can be made without meaning.”

It was among the dozens of speakers who appeared before the legislators, and when the hours of testimony were completed, elected officials voted according to the party’s parties to reject the bills.

“You are using our most vulnerable students as a political cake,” said member of the assembly Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), pointing to studies that show that transgender students are more at risk of suicide and drop from school. He added that Trans students have been participating in high school sports for a decade with little fanfare, but it is only recently that it has become a problem

The president of the Assembly, Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), who made a surprise appearance to be completed at the hearing for an absent member, said that the bills were not necessary.

“There is no epidemic of transgender children playing basketball or football or any other sport,” he said. “There are more children at the moment with measles in Texas than transgender athletes in the NCAA. This is the epidemic that we should all worry about.”

But the Republicans said that the problem was equity, several speakers noting that girls suffer from allowing trans athletes in their teams. The Republicans also warned that California support for Trans athletes endangers the state to lose billions of dollars in federal funds because it comes into conflict with the decree of the president.

“There is a biological reality,” said Essayli, who underlined a young district track athlete who, according to him, was eliminated from a place in a high -level team by a trans athlete. “It is a question of equity.”

After the hearing, republican members of the Legislative Assembly held a press conference to excite the Democrats for having blocked a debate on two bills which, according to them, show that the majority of California voters agree. Several also said that the Democrats of the Committee had just submitted funding for California’s education on a collision course with the Trump administration.

“For having defended common sense, we called ourselves Nazis,” said deputy James Gallagher (city of R-Yuba). “What we are talking about is to defend young women from the State of California.”