CLOVIS, Calif. – Just a day before statewide high school track and field championship competitions were set to take place at Buchanan High School, pushback grew against a single transgender athlete who is scheduled to compete.
Local elected officials said at a press conference Thursday they won’t be satisfied unless the transgender female athlete from Jurupa Valley High School in the Inland Empire is barred from the state finals.
“This isn't about denying anyone's identity or humanity. Every student deserves respect and safety, but compassion for one group should not come at the cost of fairness for another,” wrote State Senator Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, in a statement that was read during a press conference in Clovis Thursday.
The qualifying events for the 2025 CIF Track and Field Championships will begin Friday afternoon, and the finals are scheduled for Saturday. The transgender female student will compete in the triple jump, high jump and long jump events.
Her participation has become the latest lightning rod in the national debate about the role of transgender athletes more broadly in competitive sports. Grove and a handful of other officials, most of whom consistently referred to the student as “he” and “him,” said it’s not fair that she will compete against “biological” girls.
Tiffany Stoker Madsen, a Clovis Unified School District Trustee, said students of all backgrounds should be supported and given opportunities. But she didn’t see a leveled playing field in allowing transgender female athletes to compete with girls assigned female at birth.
“We must stand for what is true and what is fair, especially in areas where biological differences make a difference – such as in sports,” added Madsen, who was the only speaker in the room who has a child participating in the events this weekend.
The federal Department of Justice took notice of the transgender student athlete’s participation in the events. Earlier this week, it announced an investigation to determine whether California is violating the landmark civil rights laws known as Title IX. The investigation centers on a state law passed in 2013 that allows students who meet certain requirements to compete on sports teams that reflect their gender identity, rather than their biological sex.
“Title IX exists to protect women and girls in education. It is perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.
The DOJ’s legal notice named California Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the agency which oversees student athletics, as defendants.
Earlier this week, following a social media post by President Trump, the federation announced a rule change that expands the eligibility for “biological females” to compete in the state championship.
Additionally, if a cisgender girl places second to a transgender athlete, she will share the top spot on the podium. A spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom called the change “reasonable and respectful.”
But the compromise didn’t go far enough for local elected officials in Fresno County, who gathered Thursday at the Clovis Veterans Memorial Building to support President Trump’s pronouncements against transgender people in sports. Among them was Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, who went after transgender people’s identities.
“Transgenderism is not something to be celebrated, but psychologically treated by mental health professionals. These are disturbed folks and the charade has gone on for too long,” Bredefeld said.
Bredefeld added that the CIF’s rule changes were a sign the agency saw the problem with allowing a transgender female athlete to compete.
Advocates of the LGBT community, meanwhile, have paid attention to this tense situation. Many say the language being used in response to the high school student’s participation in track and field is concerning.
“That rhetoric is actually dehumanizing,” Stetler Brown, a self-described member of the LGBTQ community in Clovis, told KVPR.
Brown, who attended Thursday's press conference, said he wasn’t equipped to debate the merits of how transgender people should participate in sports. But he did take issue with the lack of understanding shown to people who are transgender.
“Using the wrong pronouns, calling the student ‘confused,’ that's harmful,” he said. “I think it's unfair to have the conversation in the way that we're having the conversation right now.”
