California AG Battles DOJ Over Trans Athlete Laws as Trump Targets Girls’ Sports

California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta is under fire as the Department of Justice launches an investigation into the state’s laws permitting transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports. The probe, announced Wednesday, follows President Donald Trump’s threat to cut federal funding over a trans athlete’s participation in a girls’ track and field championship. Bonta’s office fired back, vowing to defend California’s laws that protect students, including transgender ones, from discrimination.

The controversy stems from a lawsuit against Bonta, filed by families of two girls at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside. They claim their daughters lost varsity spots to a trans athlete and faced backlash—school officials allegedly likened their 'Save Girls Sports' T-shirts to swastikas. The suit challenges California’s 2014 law allowing trans athletes to compete as girls, a policy now clashing with Trump’s February 5 executive order, 'Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.' The U.S. Department of Education also opened a probe into the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) for defying the order.

Tensions are peaking ahead of this weekend’s girls’ track and field state championship. The CIF tweaked rules to award medals to 'biological female' competitors displaced by trans athlete AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School. But families and activists remain outraged, and the Trump administration shows no sign of backing down.