A furore has erupted over high school sports in California after transgender athlete AB Hernandez won a competition on Saturday following a rule change from the governing body allowing her to participate

The Trump administration is threatening California with legal action after a transgender athlete won two statewide high school track and field events.

Transgender athlete AB Hernandez won the competition Saturday at the California high school track and field championship to take home gold in the girls high jump and the triple jump at a meet that has stirred controversy and drawn national attention.

She competed under a new rule change that may be the first of its kind nationally by a high school sports governing body. California’s governing body – California Interscholastic Foundation -changed the rules ahead of the meet to allow more girls to compete and medal in events in which Hernandez competed.

In a letter sent to school authorities in California, Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, called CIF policies allowing transgender athletes to compete “unconstitutional.”

READ MORE: Liam Neeson’s little-known action thriller ‘better than Taken’ now streaming for freeREAD MORE: Outlander’s Sam Heughan lands ‘dream role’ after 11 years as Jamie Fraser

She alleged that “knowingly depriving female students of athletic opportunities and benefits on the basis of their sex would constitute unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment.

Dhillon ordered the CIF to no longer implement the bylaw covering transgender athletes, alleging it violates the rights of female athletes.

The federation’s rule change reflected efforts to find a middle ground in the debate over trans girls’ participation in youth sports.

“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,” the group said in a statement after announcing its rule change.

A recent AP-NORC poll found that about 7 in 10 U.S. adults think transgender female athletes should not be allowed to participate in girls and women’s sports at the high school, college or professional level. That view was shared by about 9 in 10 Republicans and roughly half of Democrats.

The federation announced the change after Trump threatened to pull federal funding from California unless it bars trans female athletes from competing on girls teams. The federation said it decided on the change before then.

The U.S. Department of Justice also said it would investigate the federation and the district that includes Hernandez’s high school to determine whether they violated federal sex discrimination law.

California law allows trans students to compete on sex-segregated sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

The federation said the rule opens the field to more “biological female” athletes. One expert said the change may itself be discriminatory because it creates an extra spot for “biological female” athletes but not for other trans athletes.

The federation did not specify how it defines “biological female” or how it would verify whether a competitor meets that definition.

Sophia Lorey, outreach director with California Family Council, was among those at the stadium Saturday. She said the federation’s policy is not a fix for the issue and only ends up causing more confusion.

Get IPL 2025 match schedules, squads, points table, and live scores for CSK, MI, RCB, KKR, SRH, LSG, DC, GT, PBKS, and RR. Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.

An Oregon high school track and field star who refused to share a podium with a transgender athlete during the girls’ high jump medal ceremony alleged officials told her to move away from the ceremony if she wasn’t going to participate.

Tigard High School’s Alexa Anderson went viral when she protested the conclusion of the Oregon State Athletic Association’s Girls High Jump finale at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., on May 31.

Anderson and Sherwood High School’s Reese Eckard, who finished in third and fourth place, stood behind the ascending podium in the infield during the ceremony because they refused to stand next to Ida B. Wells High School transgender student Liaa Rose, who placed fifth.

“We stepped off the podium in protest and, as you can see, the official kind of told us ‘hey, go over there, if you’re not going to participate, get out of the photos,’” she told Fox News‘ “The Ingraham Angle.”

Anderson, a University of South Alabama commit, alleged that the area where they were told to stand was out of the view of the photographers.

“They asked us to move away from the medal stand, so when they took the photos, we weren’t even in it at all,” she told the outlet.

Anderson and Eckard had synchronously stepped off their respective platforms and turned their backs to the podium as the names of the top eight finishers were announced.

An official spotted them and pointed them away from the podium, frustrating Anderson.

Rose jumped 5 feet and 1.65 inches in the competition, behind Eckard’s 5 feet 3 inches and Anderson’s 5 feet 4.25 inches.

Anderson and Eckard, both seniors, felt it was unfair for them to compete against a transgender opponent who competed in the boys division in 2023 and 2024.

“It’s unfair because biological males and biological females compete at such different levels that letting a biological male into our competition is taking up space and opportunities from all these hardworking women, the girl in ninth who should have came in eighth and had that podium spot taken away from her, as well as many others,” Anderson said.

Anderson said it was the first time she publicly protested a transgender athlete but had always supported other females who took a stand against the controversial policy in high school sports.

“This is the first public stand that I have taken in this issue, but I have privately supported all the girls that have done with positive messages, commenting on posts, just supporting them and letting them know I’m behind them in any way,” Anderson said. 

At the same time as Anderson’s protest, transgender athlete Verónica Garcia won the state Class 2A 400-meter dash in nearby Washington.

Garcia won the race by over a second and called out the critics for the dominating win against biological females.

“I’ll be honest, I kind of expect it,” Garcia told the outlet.

“But it maybe didn’t have their intended effect. It made me angry, but not angry as in, I wanted to give up, but angry as in, I’m going to push,” Garcia said after the race.

The 17-year-old senior from East Valley High School had made Washington State last year by being the first transgender athlete to win a title.

“I’m going to put this in the most PG-13 way, I’m just going to say it’s a damn shame they don’t have anything else better to do. I hope they get a life. But oh well. It just shows who they are as people,” she added.

With Post wires