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California girls, their families and other activists will march to the meeting of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) in Costa Mesa on Friday to protest the state's laws that allow biologically male trans athletes to compete in girls' sports.
The protest was organized by the California Family Council, which announced the rally in a press release Thursday. Multiple female athletes will speak at a press conference at the event, including Taylor Starling, Kaitlyn Slavin and Celeste Duyst.
Starling and Slavin are engaged in a lawsuit against their school district, the Riverside Unified School District, after a trans athlete took Starling's varsity cross-country spot last fall, and they allege school administrators compared their "Save Girls Sports" T-shirts to swastikas.
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California high school athlete Taylor Starling (Courtesy of Taylor Starling)
Duyst went viral for a speech she gave at a Lucia Mar Unified School District board meeting in April, where she cried while recounting having to share a locker room with a trans athlete before track practice.
"This is about justice," California Family Council Outreach Director Sophia Lorey said in the press release. "Girls across California are being sidelined by policies that ignore biological reality. CIF must answer for that."
The rally will come weeks after the state was rocked by the presence of a trans athlete at the CIF track and field championships, where Jurupa Valley High School's transgender student AB Hernandez took first place in the high jump and triple jump.
President Donald Trump sent a message to the state in the week leading up to the event, warning of potential federal funding cuts if a trans athlete was allowed to compete in the girls championship.
The CIF amended its rules to allow girls who finish behind a trans athlete to be elevated to the spot they would have finished otherwise, but Hernandez was still allowed to compete. Girls who finished behind Hernandez in the championships then had to share the same podium spot with the trans athlete during medal ceremonies.
Trump then vowed to impose "large-scale fines" on the state of California for allowing a biological male trans athlete to win multiple girls state titles on June 3.
"A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so. As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Department of Justice announced a federal probe of California over potential Title IX violations regarding its policy allowing trans athletes in girls sports in late May. The state had already been under a Department of Education investigation over the issue since February.
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The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta provided a statement to Fox News Digital addressing the U.S. Department of Justice sending a letter warning of a June 9 deadline to amend its policies to bar trans athletes from girls sports.
"We’re very concerned with the Trump administration’s ongoing threats to California schools and remain committed to defending and upholding California laws and all additional laws which ensure the rights of students — including transgender students — to be free from discrimination and harassment. We are reviewing the letter and closely monitoring the Trump administration’s actions in this space," the statement said.
A bipartisan survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found the majority of California residents oppose biological male trans athletes competing in women's sports.
That figure included more than 70% of the state's school parents.
"Most Californians support requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching the sex they were assigned at birth," the poll stated.
"Solid majorities of adults (65%) and likely voters (64%) support requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with. An overwhelming majority of public school parents (71%) support such a requirement."
Newsom said trans athletes competing in girls sports was "deeply unfair" during an episode of his podcast in March.
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Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. He previously worked for ESPN and Business Insider. Jackson has covered the Super Bowl and NBA Finals, and has interviewed iconic figures Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz and Roger Clemens.
