Two bills targeting trans athletes to be considered in California Legislature

Lia Russell, The Sacramento Bee on Mar 24, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Members of the California Assembly will consider a pair of bills targeting transgender athletes next week, a surprising development that comes weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom called trans athletes’ participation in sports “deeply unfair” on his podcast.

Two bills sponsored by Assemblymembers Kate Sanchez, R-Rancho Santa Margarita, and Bill Essayli, R-Corona, will be considered at an April 1 meeting in that chamber’s Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism committee, according to a member of the office of Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat who chairs the committee and also the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus.

Sanchez’s bill would require the organization that oversees public school sports and extracurricular activities to ban trans girls from playing women’s sports. Essayli’s bill would overturn a landmark 2013 state law enshrining the rights of students from kindergarten to 12th grade to participate on sports teams and use locker rooms that reflect their gender identity.

The two bills will likely draw more attention since Newsom broke with the majority of the Democratic Party and contradicted his previous support for the LGBTQ community in a March 6 episode of “This Is Gavin Newsom.” He told conservative activist Charlie Kirk that Republicans had successfully “weaponized” increasing opposition to trans participation in sports into a winning strategy in the 2024 election.

“I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said, citing his two school-aged daughters and his experience as a college athlete when Kirk asked him whether “men should compete in female sports.”

There are 1.6 million transgender people 13 years and older nationwide, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute. About 122,000 trans teenagers (between 13 and 17) participate in high school sports, and fewer than 10 trans people out of 530,000 student-athletes compete at the college level, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Bills face Democratic opposition

Despite their advancement, neither Essayli nor Sanchez’s bills is likely to overcome the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority, which has previously killed bills with little chance of passing out of committee. Essayli, known more for generating headlines than getting bills passed, tried to force a vote on his bill during a floor session Monday afternoon.

“Very unfair to our girls!” he said after the motion failed. “Any thoughts, Gavin Newsom?”

“April 1st at 9 a.m. is when we will see whether Legislative Democrats are willing to stand with us and ensure that girls’ sports are fair and safe,” Republican Assembly caucus spokesperson Jim Stanley said in a text message. “It’s really not that complicated.”

Ward, the chair of the committee that will hear the bills, previously overhauled another controversial Essayli-sponsored bill, which would have required teachers to notify parents if their children came out as trans at school. Ward gutted and amended that bill by making it illegal to force teachers to “out” trans students, which Newsom signed into law last July.

Ward said he agreed to hear the bill because his committee had the “capacity” to do so.

By calling the hearing, “we’re hoping we can document that we’ve had this debate and put it to rest once and for all,” Ward said. “Not hearing the bill ... sends the message that we can keep festering the issue and gives another cycle to the life cycle of this issue.”

Newsom spokesperson Elana Ross declined to comment Monday when asked if the governor would support or oppose Sanchez and Essayli’s bills, saying the governor “typically does not comment on pending legislation.”

Politicians, observers and pundits across the political spectrum have speculated that Newsom’s heel-turn is a ploy to soften his reputation as a liberal California Democrat to appeal to moderate voters, should he run for president in 2028 as expected.

Newsom’s remarks shocked his supporters, who applauded him for supporting the LGBTQ community even when it put him at odds with his own political allies. As mayor of San Francisco, he ordered the city to grant marriage licenses to homosexual couples during a brief window in early 2004 before a since-nullified statewide marriage equality ban went into effect.

‘Too much, too fast’

Former Sen. Dianne Feinstein chastised him for moving “too much, too fast, too soon” and suggested that Newsom’s decision cost John Kerry the 2004 election by galvanizing conservatives to vote for President George W. Bush.

More recently, a long-simmering conflict between the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus and Newsom’s administration came to light after his podcast remarks. His chief of staff, Nathan Barankin, and legislative affairs secretary Christine Aurre discouraged caucus staff in a January meeting from introducing trans-related legislation as the governor courted President Donald Trump for disaster relief aid after the Los Angeles wildfires.

Someone with close knowledge of the January meeting said Monday that the relationship between the caucus and the governor’s office was still “tense” but both parties were committed to cooperating on future legislation.

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