California's new Youth Sports for All Act (AB 749) is supposedly intended to address participation challenges in youth sports like cost, transportation, and access to local programs, particularly for low-income and minority youths.
But Greg Burt of the California Family Council says it is essentially a "trojan horse" designed to eliminate fairness and further cement males' participation in girls' sports.
"In public schools, you can [already] identify as the opposite sex, and … boys can play on girls' sports teams; girls can play on boys' sports teams simply if they identify as that sex," he notes.
With AB 749, he says the state is moving into the private sphere.
"Local, recreational, private, Little League teams and soccer teams and all kinds of sporting activities – they want to be able to regulate those private entities based on the same discrimination against gender identity basis," Burt says.
The act, authored by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D), creates a "Blue Ribbon Commission" under the State Public Health Office to study how inclusive private organizations are. It is designed to assess the potential for a more centralized state entity to oversee youth athletics.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured above) signed the measure into law this month.
"It seems like even though we have a governor who says it's 'deeply unfair' to allow boys to compete in girls' sports, in practice, he is doing the opposite," the family advocate observes.
Section 124254(a)(1) of the bill specifically directs the commission to study how to "improve access to and involvement in sports for all youth, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income, or geographic location."
Burt says the inclusion of the phrase "gender identity" exposes the bill's real agenda.
But he asserts California does not have to continue down this path.
"As long as people will vote their values … girls' sports will be protected," he says. "If they continue to vote for legislators that are not protecting girls' sports, then it's going to continue to get worse."
Noting that one gubernatorial candidate, former California State Controller Betty Yee, has said she would consider making sports "gender neutral," where everybody would compete against everybody, Burt reiterates that things would change if people would vote their values.
