California Gov. Gavin Newsom may be uncomfortable with biological males competing against females, but that didn’t stop his fellow Democrats from defeating state legislation to bar transgender athletes from girls’ scholastic sports. They will pay politically for their dumb action.

     The Democratic majority on the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism voted against two measures, Assembly Bills 89 and 844, that would have required scholastic athletes to compete based on sex at birth in K-12 as well as college sports. Opponents of the proposals defeated the measures by 6-2 votes.  “Despite powerful testimony from student-athletes and advocates, as well as Gov. Newsom’s recent comments that male athletes competing on girls’ sports teams is ’deeply unfair,’ Democrats refused to act,” said the California Assembly Republicans in a statement after the Tuesday vote.

        Mr. Newsom drew headlines last month on his podcast for agreeing that allowing transgender athletes to compete in female sports is “deeply unfair,” but declined to take a position on the legislative proposals. The party-line votes came as further evidence that Democrats at the state and national level have no intention of budging on their support for transgender athletes, despite being on the wrong side of an 80/20 issue in polls that helped juice Republican victories in 2024.

     The votes also come with the Trump administration already investigating the California Interscholastic Federation, which allows students to compete in sports based on gender identity, for possible violations of the federal anti-discrimination law Title IX.  AB 89, sponsored by Republican Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez, would have required the federation to prohibit students from competing on gender identity versus sex at birth.