Women Sports Advocates Call on California High School Sports to Follow Trump’s Executive Order

Collegiate athlete Amber French speaks at a press conference by the "Save Girls' Sports CA Coalition" in Long Beach, Calif., on Feb. 7, 2025. The group called on the California Interscholastic Federation to follow President Trump's executive order banning men from women's sports. Courtesy of Alyssa Cruz

LONG BEACH, Calif.—A group called the “Save Girls’ Sports CA Coalition” on Feb. 7 urged the governing body of high school sports in California to follow President Trump’s executive order banning men from women’s sports, and to end what the group called “discriminatory policies.”

“California Interscholastic Federation, CIF, is failing female athletes. CIF has chosen to defy a federal executive order,” said Sophia Lorey, outreach director of California Family Council, and an organizer of the Coalition, at a press conference in Long Beach, ahead of CIF’s quarterly council meeting at that location on the same day.

The CIF oversees the state’s interscholastic athletics competitions. The Federated Council is the governing body of CIF and includes high school superintendents, principals, athletic directors, educators, and allied organizations. CIF represents more than 1,600 high schools including both public and private.

“They will have to answer for why they sacrificed the safety, fairness, and dignity of young girls to bow to an ideological agenda,” Lorey said.

President Trump Feb. 5 signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” intending to prevent male athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports and using female locker rooms. The order also threatens to rescind funds from educational programs that violate the order.

The CIF said it has followed state law, which permits students to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with their preferred gender identity, irrespective of the sex listed on the pupil’s records.

“The CIF provides students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete in education-based experiences in compliance with California law, which permits students to participate in school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with the student’s gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the student’s records,” CIF’s spokesperson Rebecca Brutlag said in a emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

Brutlag did not comment on whether the CIF would consider policy changes in the future.

In response to Trump’s executive order, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its policy on Feb. 6, restricting participation in women’s sports to only athletes who were documented as female at birth.

“I just hope that the CIF can be just as courageous as the NCAA was,” said Ryan Starling, father of CIF athlete Taylor Starling, at the press conference.

Starling is suing the Riverside Unified School District for allegedly removing his daughter from the varsity cross country team and replacing her with a transgender athlete.

Advocates also spoke about how it is common sense for athletes to participate in competition according to sex instead of identity, acknowledging that males have significant physiological advantages over females.

“Why are we seeing only male athletes try to compete in female sports and not vice versa? It is because we can’t deny the biological differences between men and women,” collegiate athlete Amber French said.

If transgender athletes “refuse to compete against their own sex,” she suggested, “let’s make an open category for them where they can still compete competitively, but not compromise competitive female athletes and all their hard work.”