California Interscholastic Federation Championship and male athlete policy changes

[Helleofabore]

It looks like going forward the California Interscholastic Federation Championship is going to offer any female athlete the same opportunity / award as a male athlete that is competing in that event.

For instance, if they missed out due to a male athlete on getting to a final, they will add the female athlete to ensure she gets a chance. If a male athlete wins a podium place, the next female athlete will receive the same podium place.

I am doing a further check on this.

https://x.com/SophiaSLorey/status/1927824612559315450

The announcement:

As a follow-up to the May 27 announcement regarding the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championship pilot entry process, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) addresses the following steps taken this past weekend and
what will occur moving forward:

At the conclusion of the high jump, triple jump and long jump events at the CIF/Southern Section Masters Meet on Saturday, May 24, biological female student-athletes who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section's automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals at their Section meet, was extended an opportunity to participate in the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships. These additional entries were included in the track and field state meet performance lists posted on www.cifstate.org on Sunday, May 25.

On Friday, May, 30, if necessary, in the high jump, triple jump and long jump qualifying events at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships, a biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark will also be advanced to the finals. Additionally, if necessary, in the high jump, triple jump and long jump events at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships, a biological female student-athlete who would have earned a specific placement on the podium will also be awarded the medal for that place and the results will be reflected in the recording of the event.

The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law and Education Code. We now turn our attention to the 1,533 student-athletes participating in the
2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships.

Here is the link to the announcement

https://www.cifstate.org/news/2025_TF_follow-up_5.28.25

How is this workable? Surely any male athlete, Ab Hernandez seems to have triggered this policy, must be starting to understand that their inclusion in the female events is now just effectively virtue signalling.

At least, the female athletes will now be recognised to a degree.

It is good that a female athlete will also get a first place spot on the podium if he wins.

From what I've seen of the young man and his pushy mother, they won't be happy about this because they will basically be acknowledging that he shouldn't be there because of his unfair male advantage but they have to use these daft measures to circumvent California law.

This is completely unworkable. You can’t have extra athelete(s) going through to final rounds as there aren’t enough lanes on the track or in the swimming pool. You’d have to have multiple smaller “finals” (call them semi finals🤣) until you got down to a low enough number.

That would make meets longer and more expensive.

What next, 8 people on a netball team? 2 against 1 in the boxing ring? Absurd.

Just for background it was only a week ago that we were celebrating the bold protest move from Reese Hogan after she stepped onto 1st place podium for a photo.

It is the athlete who displaced her that this new policy has been put in place in time for today’s events.

https://nypost.com/2025/05/20/us-news/california-track-star-reese-hogan-poses-as-winner-after-placing-second-to-trans-athlete-ab-hernandez-praised-by-riley-gaines/

I expect it was the push back that built due to Hernandez’ inclusion that created this policy.

However, I think the policy is likely to stay for a while. Reading this about Newsom, I am not sure what to expect from him or his team.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-demands-california-stop-trans-girl-competing-state-high-jump-finals-2025-05-27/

Relevant section

“A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment on Trump's remarks, but referred to comments Newsom made in April when he said overturning California's 12-year-old law allowing trans athletes to participate in sports was not a priority.”

"You're talking about a very small number of people," Newsom told reporters. Out of the 5.8 million students in California's public school system, there are estimated to be fewer than 10 active trans student-athletes, according to the governor's office.”

I agree. However, I expect that they look at it as only effecting particular events. Although if I remember correctly Hernandez is in several.

So they will dismiss it as a viable work around to give the opportunity for participation. I believe that could be the wording of the law. It is all about participation in the sex they gender identify as apparently.

The TRA push back to this is going to be interesting.

If cheating in order to gain is the reason, I wonder if this will feel too fake to make it worthwhile.

One would imagine it does, but these men don't think like normal people.

I can see an explosion of fury that they are not being considered actual women, but also, well fuck it, I'll get a medal and that's all I want.

I like it. I mean, yes, ridiculous, but in this ridiculous situation it means the women and girls can get on with having their sport and their contests. And some superfluous men who want to see how good they are competing against women, or just want to feel like they are actually really good, tag along too. They get the validation of being a superb success without actually needing to be first class.

It doesn’t address the resource issue- they consume space and resources set aside for women, and prevent the women having privacy where they need it.

It’s a very transparent arrangement though. Sunlight and all that!

Women and girls still miss out in this.

If it's one male maybe it's not so bad, but that's not how this has planned out in practice when males compete alongside females.

There's only eight or nine lanes in a track. Even with semi finals etc, you still face the prospect of potentially having two or three males in the final at the expense of two or three females. So those females never get to run in that final even if the top achieving females get to stand on the podium. You also have the females who aren't sent to the competition in the first place by their individual clubs because the clubs get say three spaces and give them to males.

Not only this but none of this says anything about shared changing facilities and what women and girls will have to put up with in terms of that along the way.

It is a head pat, and yes, it's questionable in many ways, but ok, if there's no cost to women/girl athletes in terms of the loss of access, awards, scholarships, podium places in sports where it is safe for a man to do an event alongside women, whatever. It's a step in the right direction.

As with GRCs. Give them out free with cornflakes for all I care, so long as they aren't an all access pass to control women's bodies and lives.

That should separate the actual vulnerable with these needs and the ones who are trying it on for a wide range of reasons.

Men and boys who want to identify as something other than man/boy, go for it, be happy, express yourself. But no man or boy turns into a woman or girl, and their inner world cannot ever be expressed and 'respected' by permitting them to damage those who are not seen as equal stakeholders or even worthy of being asked consent.

I agree that this solution is a work around based on weak law that has been written with little consideration given to female athletes.

I cannot see how it is workable apart from the virtue signalling it fulfils.

This is an excellent example of additional privileges being wrongly described as human rights. It is undoubtedly, an additional privilege extended to a small group of people. What other group of athletes are given the right to compete in events that they don’t qualify for, except for male people who demand to be treated as female despite being male?

Whether it is a male athlete who has the philisophical belief they are male or whether it is one who was categorised in error as being female but is male and has masculinised to any degree. Of course, one group of male athletes leveraged those with DSDs to open the female category for them to access too.

Either way. Two groups of male athletes have been given privileges others have not. I consider it because the testosterone is naturally produced and therefore falls outside the performance enhancement drug bans. And then came the philosophical thought behind the discrimination based on sex categories which forced the human rights aspect based on dignity back in the 90s which convinced the IOC to allow male people with masculinising DSDs to compete under dignity grounds.

California needs to change their laws. But as Gendervoid says, probably not this term of government.

I am confused by Newsom's stance, I thought he said it was unfair to allow trans-identifying males to compete in female sports? But now seems to be backtracking by saying it's "a very small number of people"?

In any case, it makes me angry to read statements like "there are estimated to be fewer than 10 active trans student-athletes" as if, because it's a small number, it isn't an issue.
Assuming the trans athletes are male, that's 10 or so women/girls who have to step down a place. And the ones below them, and the ones below them. And so on. Plus all the girls who will look at sport and think "nah. It's not worth even competing".

It sounds like he is quite ambitious and a bit of a weathervane. If the general public in California become more vocally critical of the policy, he will change his position again.

I would imagine the TRAs will be raging. It is making 'special' allowances for the male athletes in female competition, I.e. acknowledging they are different.

I mean look at the pushback to the suggestion of them using third spaces, such as gender neutral toilets, in the UK. They won't accept anything other than total acceptance of them as women. And screw any actual women who are affected by this 😐

And that's why this answer won't be acceptable and needs to be seen to be unacceptable, but is really the only fair solution.

Express yourself, we appreciate you and celebrate you, we are signalling consideration and care to your identity and not granting you supremacy over women and girls. The limits to self expression are impacting upon other people. The framing of non-special people as resources and service providers has got to stop.

He wants to be president and someone pointed out to him that allowing men/boys to cheat in women's/girls sports is a vote looser so he's da starmer by saying the minimum he needs to to not loose those votes in a way that doesn't alienate his current voter base whilst doing nothing to protect women and girls nor their sport.

Ah, thanks @Hoardasurass and @ItsCoolForCats, it's all making a bit more sense now

“Express yourself, we appreciate you and celebrate you, we are signalling consideration and care to your identity and not granting you supremacy over women and girls. The limits to self expression are impacting upon other people. The framing of non-special people as resources and service providers has got to stop.”

Yes. This solution achieves this.

I cannot imagine any transgender activist groups will be happy and I imagine there may be an attempt or at least discussion, about legal challenges.

However, this is what they got with their emotionally manipulative ’we just want to participate in the sports we love as our true selves.’ This is participation. It places additional burdens on athletes and organisations, but it achieves this demand.

I think this will ramp up the demands that society acts like they believe these male people are 100% female people again. But that horse has bolted. Not in the near future will this happen, maybe in far decades to come.

Yes. We are reaching the 'this is what is fair, equal and available to meet your perceived needs and your wishes' stage. Which still involves organisations and other participants putting in the extra work to enable this.

But it will bring it sharply down to what the real issue is.

It seems that the afternoon was eventful.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/california-track-field-championship-sees-arrest-aerial-banner-amid-transgender-controversy

California track and field championship sees arrest and aerial banner amid transgender controversy

May 30, 2025 9:44pm EDT

The California track and field state championship prelim round in Clovis on Friday was a scene of conflicting beliefs and even police intervention amid an ongoing controversy involving a trans athlete competing in the girls' category.

At least one person was arrested, the Clovis Police confirmed Fox News Digital. The person arrested was a protester who is accused of shattering a car window with a flag pole. The department confirmed the person arrested was an LGBTQ activist.

"This afternoon at 3:55PM, a disturbance between two adults occurred at the intersection of Nees/Minnewawa. One adult on the sidewalk and one in a vehicle at the intersection became involved in a disturbance that turned physical. During the disturbance, one of them used pepper spray against the other. EMS was called and one of the adults was arrested," a statement read.

The person has been arrested for assault with a weapon and obstructing a police, according to Sergeant Chris Hutchison.
"We don't have room for violence or property damage or anything like that," Hutchison.

Meanwhile, a plane flying a banner that read "no boys in girls' sports" passed over the California track and field championship Friday in Clovis.
Footage provided to Fox News Digital by California activist Beth Bourne showed the plan flying overhead at Buchanan High School's Veterans Memorial Stadium.

The stunt was organized by two women's advocacy group, Women are Real and the Independent Council for Women's Sports.

"California is beginning to reap the consequences of defying federal law and brazenly harming girls," said Kim Jones, co-founder of ICONS in a press release announcing the aerial banner.

it goes on and then

Then the Department of Justice announced it would launch an investigation into the CIF and California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the state's law that allows biologically male trans athletes to compete with girls and women on Wednesday.

The CIF announced a pair of rule changes on Tuesday and Wednesday in response to the backlash, expanding the size of the competitor pool and even handing out medals to any "biological female" athlete displaced by a transgender athlete at the meet.

Apparently, Hernandez competes tomorrow in

high jump,
triple jump,
and long jump

Meanwhile others to watch are :

x.com/hecheateddotorg/status/1928586647471259680?s=46

Male athlete Logan "Veronica" Garcia has just qualified for the "girls'" 400 meter final at the WIAA 2A State Championship meet.

He runs in the finals tomorrow.

And

x.com/riley_gaines_/status/1928419695406858312?s=46

Last night, a man single-handedly carried his high school in Minnesota to a Class 4A Softball Championship.

He pitched 14 shutout innings in back-to-back games to defeat the defending state champs.

Marisa Rothenberg has changed their birth certificate to ‘F’. Meaning that if Rothenberg is picked up by a college in the future he will still be eligible to play under the new NCAA rules.

Here is a CNN interview :

x.com/sophiaslorey/status/1928555220017230179?s=46

Meanwhile, a plane flying a banner that read "no boys in girls' sports"

I like it, that's a good idea, very eye catching, take the fight to the skies. 😁👍

Violent protests erupt in California as trans athlete thrashes female rivals in defiance of Trump's executive order - as her glamorous mother hits back at president | Daily Mail Online

Sky News have just covered this.

Good points from Dr Hilton

https://x.com/fondofbeetles/status/1928751660177969514?s=46

I don't think this is The Solution, but I'm generally in favour of weighing up proposals, so let's look at this one.

California high school sports have proposed to protect girls and accommodate trans-identified boys as follows:

If a male athlete gets a medal, the displaced female athlete also gets her medal.

Some thoughts to follow, chewing the fat for open discussion...

An example of finish places and medals under this scheme might look like this:

1st William-now-Lia 🥇
2nd Helen 🥇
3rd Sarah 🥈
4th Catherine 🥉

So on the face of it, the top three girls get their rightful medals. Presumably this is how CIF say they are protecting those girls.

That is, to rephrase the original proposal:

The top three girls are medalled in order, and any boy that is good enough to finish in this female competitive window gets a place-matched medal.

This rephrasing shows the flaws.

CIF are creating a trans category. But they might not recognise that fact, because this trans category is being run in the same time and space as the female category.

OK, a trans category has routinely been proposed as A Solution. I've made such proposals myself.

However, I've always caveated that operating a trans category should not be at the expense of time, space and resources for girls.

Swimming lanes are finite resource. Track lanes are a finite resource.

An open trail over the Rockies is not a finite resource. It might be possible in this type of event to record people within a trans category while letting trans-identified males start with the female runners (happy to discuss this as A Solution for some events).

The nature of restricted places and how those places are used to determine progression is more important in swimming and track.

For individual events, say, weightlifting, it might be possible to record people within a trans category while letting trans-identified males lift in turn with female lifters. I'm not saying this will or should "hide" the fact that the lifter is male (we have eyes), but it's an accommodation of sorts, for sure.

So running a trans category in the same time and space as a female category isn't necessarily always an issue (although I think it is for track).

The more immediate problem here is they propose to run a trans category (even if they don't realise it) but the trans athletes are not competing against each other and the competition will only reward some trans athletes.

The second fastest trans-identified boy won't get recognition in the trans category unless they are fast enough to keep up with the fastest girls.

While some of us are unlikely to be overly-sympathetic to this, it does, on paper, strike me as somewhat against a purpose of categories to reward accordingly within a physically-matched cohort.

Bluntly, if you're going to run a trans category, do it properly?

It may even be illegal discrimination?

Obviously, it will out trans people.

I know I know, we have eyes.

But two "girls" with different performances sharing a podium will attract a ton of attention, and I doubt CIF intended to flag their trans athletes quite so obviously.

Boys swelling the female ranks might be bonkers. More podiums, more places allocated to the displaced girls who didn't progress to the next round, etc.

The male competition might be a bit cross that they are now receiving less resources and less accommodations than the female version.

More illegal discrimination?

And if you're going to operate a trans category in the same time and space as a boring old sex category, why not in the same time and space as the male category?

Which should be open to everyone anyway.