On Wednesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 749, which will create a commission to “address inequities by promoting inclusive, accessible, and affordable youth sports programs and coaching education.”
Specifically, the “Youth Sports for All Act” requires “the State Public Health Officer to establish and convene the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Development of a California Department of Youth Sports or an Equivalent Centralized Entity to conduct a comprehensive study on the need for and feasibility of creating a centralized entity charged with supporting and regulating youth sports.”
AB 749 is controversial because it assesses the fitness of students for sports regardless of gender-identity, allowing the possibility of trans-identifying students to be found worthy of competing in sports inconsistent with their biological sex. The commission will conduct an “assessment of the need and potential for a centralized entity to improve access to and involvement in sports for all youth, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, income, or geographic location, that addresses issues in youth sports.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones criticized the legislation in a September letter to Governor Newsom requesting his veto of the bill.
“The author and supporters of [this legislation] know if they were upfront and put forth a straightforward bill allowing biological males to compete against young women and girls, it would be easily defeated,” Jones wrote on Sept. 26. “So instead they are trying to establish a stacked commission to indirectly rig the issue in their favor.”
Continuing, Jones related Newsom’s confession of the unfairness of biological males competing against females in a podcast episode with TPUSA Founder Charlie Kirk.
“The major complaint legislators hear from constituents about youth sports today in California is the basic unfairness of biological males competing against biological females in youth sports. Governor, as you said so clearly earlier this year on a podcast with the late Charlie Kirk: ‘I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you [Charlie Kirk] on that. It is an issue of fairness—it’s deeply unfair [for biological males to compete against and girls and young women].’ Yet the commission AB 749 would establish is required to improve access to and involvement in sports for all youth, regardless of a number of demographic factors including ‘gender identity,’” Jones wrote
Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, co-sponsor of the bill, found Jones’ criticism futile.
“Senator Brian Jones’ time would be better spent writing to the Republican controlled Congress to end the Trump Shutdown and reopen the federal government, rather than attacking trans students,” McKinnor told the Los Angeles Times.
Newsom recently vetoed bills concerning reparations provided by universities to students with enslaved ancestors, and one that would ban “forever chemicals” in cookware.
