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Despite the heartfelt testimony of women and girls who have been negatively affected by having biological males in female sports and sex-segregated facilities, the so-called party of women’s rights wouldn’t even let the proposal pass out of committee.
On Tuesday, Democrats on the Assembly Arts, Entertainment, Sports, and Tourism Committee voted down Assembly Bill 89, which would have prohibited male students from competing in girls’ sports, and Assembly Bill 844, which would have required educational institutions to require students to use the bathroom or locker room according to their biological sex.
“There is no epidemic of transgender kids playing basketball, soccer, or any other sport, for that matter,” Speaker Robert Rivas claimed. “The real threat is the Trump administration taking away abortion access and dismantling programs that help women. And finally, I can’t emphasize this point enough — I’m not going to support a bill that takes rights away from a protected class of people,”
According to The San Joaquin Valley Sun, Rivas then left the hearing before the vote on AB 844.
Los Angeles Democrat Rick Zbur dramatically compared the two bills to Nazi Germany, claiming that Trump is creating an “autocracy.”
The testimony of those who were there to discuss their concerns and to advocate for the bills fell on deaf ears.
Kate Sanchez, who sponsored AB89, said at the hearing that she was there because of all the female athletes who had told her about the problem of males in their sports. She argued that there are, in fact, many males competing in women’s sports, citing a recent UCLA study that found there are 122,000 transgender athletes nationwide.
Sanchez posted on X,
“CA Dems just killed my bill to protect girls’ sports. They DO NOT CARE that girls no longer have a level playing field and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
A high school athlete named Jayden told the lawmakers that she feels like there is no such thing as women’s sports now.
“Through my hard work and dedication, I’ve worked my way up to being fifth statewide for long jump and eighth for high jump, which increases my likelihood of being recruited for college sports,” she said, adding,
“Now, my dream of competing at the California state track and field championship in two months is at risk because a biological male who is currently ranked first place for both long jump and triple jump is allowed to compete in the girls’ category. Years of training, of long days on the track and of long weekends at meets, of tough fought victories, all now feel diminished.
The opportunities I and so many other female athletes have worked so hard for now feel out of reach. I don’t feel like there’s such thing as girls sports anymore. It feels wrong. I don’t understand how my hard work, my dedication, my very best, can be rendered meaningless by a policy that ignores differences between males and females.”
Sophia Lorey, a former college soccer player and the Outreach Director for the California Family Council, also spoke at the hearing. Following the vote, she promised that the fight was not over.
“Today they silenced our bills, but they didn’t silence our movement,” Lorey said outside the state capitol. “They didn’t silence the moms, the dads, the coaches, or the athletes. They didn’t silence you, and they certainly didn’t silence me. I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She later added, “We are not backing down, we are just getting started. The committee may have closed the door to AB 844 and AB 89, but they’ve opened a firestorm of grassroots momentum that will only grow louder, stronger, and more determined. We will be back with more voices, more supporters and more resolve. We will be back until science, fairness, and common sense are respected again in this building.”
Perhaps the most electrifying moment of the day was Daily Wire journalist and creator of the documentary What is a Woman? Matt Walsh’s testimony in support of AB 844.
Walsh said he wasn’t going to talk about fairness or safety but “about the most basic thing of all. It’s truth.”
“You must keep men out of women’s sports and out of their facilities for the simple reason that they are men. Men are not women. A man who claims he is a woman is still not a woman,” he continued.
“A man who identifies as a woman is either deluded and confused, or he is a cross-dressing fetishist looking to play out his fantasies in public. In either case, the claim that he’s making, the claim to womanhood, is not true, and compelling women to take part in this untruth is evil, perverse, and predatory. If you would use the force of law to compel young girls to use a changing room with a boy, you are yourselves predators,” Walsh proclaimed.
The hearing came after weeks of news coverage on California’s handling of men in women’s sports. Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, stirred up headlines when he admitted on his podcast that allowing males to compete in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.”
Secretary of the Department of Education Linda McMahon wrote to Newsom last week urging him to support the bills to protect women’s sports and private spaces in obedience to federal law.
However, in the end, Newsom did not issue any public support for either AB89 or AB844.
The U.S. Department of Education will likely announce investigations and freezing of funds to California schools following the vote as it continues taking steps to enforce Title IX’s requirements for equal opportunity and sex-segregated facilities for women.
As Walsh so precisely and accurately put it, this issue will ultimately be decided not by pragmatic arguments about fairness or safety but by truth.
We have been writing for years about the harms caused by males invading women’s spaces and their sports, as well as the harms of transgender dogma itself.
Throughout this saga we have witnessed and detailed the courage of female athletes and advocates like Lorey and Jayden. These women and girls are nothing short of heroic. Yet despite the gains made by these women and girls, as well as all of us fighting against males in women’s spaces and sports, despite the tragic stories of violence, lost championships and placements, lost roster spots, injuries, and invasion of privacy, the left is not convinced nor are they even mildly sympathetic.
No, to the left, these women and girls, as well as advocates like Sanchez or Walsh, are Nazis because they have the gall to believe that a man who says he’s a woman shouldn’t be able to disrobe next to a girl.
For all their talk of “women’s rights,” it seems the only rights the left thinks a woman should have are the rights to be sexually exploited, to be drafted into the military, and to kill her unborn child.
What “gains” have women actually achieved if they don’t even have the basic right to refuse to be crushed in competition by a male who has an unfair edge or, more importantly, the right to refuse to allow him to expose himself or ogle her in the locker room?
While Democrats keep doubling down on transgenders, they are lurching further from the views of the people they serve. A New York Times/Ipsos poll of over 2,000 Americans released in February showed that 79 percent of those polled, including 67 percent of Democrats, believe that males who identify as female should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
Does the left care? No.
Matt Walsh is right: Any leader who forces women and young girls to change next to a man is, in fact, a predator. And any politician who claims to care about women and girls but forces them to lose to a man in athletic competition or be housed in a dorm room or hotel room with a man is a liar.
There’s good news for girls and bad news for politicians, however: When brave women like Lorey say they aren’t done fighting, they mean it — and no one should count them out.
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