In response to Valenzuela’s ruling, a Justice Department spokesperson said that the agency is “evaluating our options for appeal.”
A federal judge has dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit challenging California policies that allow transgender athletes to compete on school sports teams that match their gender identity.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the Justice Department claimed that California’s Department of Education and the state Interscholastic Federation violated provisions of Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education and related activities.
In its original claim, attorneys for the Trump administration argued that Title IX broadly requires sports eligibility and participation to be contingent on biological sex, rather than gender identity.
But, on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Cyntha Valenzuela ruled that Title IX sets no such requirement. Valenzuela also cited a recent Supreme Court ruling, which allows other states to set their own eligibility criteria, in support of her decision.
The Supreme Court, Valenzuela wrote, “explained that Title IX’s regulations ‘expressly permit schools’ to maintain separate sex-based teams and ultimately held that States ‘may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females’ and ‘may determine eligibility for those teams based on biological sex.” The effect, Valenzuela said, upholds “biological sex-eligibility rules … without holding that Title IX requires every school to adopt the same rule.”
Valenzuela further noted that the Supreme Court “declined to decide whether Title IX permits transgender girls to participate on girls’ and women’s teams” and “expressly stated” that its opinion did not address that “distinct question.”
“That reserved question need not be resolved here. [The Justice Department] seeks to enforce a categorical exclusion rule as a condition of federal funding,” Valenzuela wrote. “The Spending Clause inquiry is therefore whether Title IX and its implementing regulations clearly required California to exclude transgender girls from girls’ teams and sex-separated facilities.”
“[T]hey did not,” the judge said.
Title IX’s “Spending Clause” can be used to restrict the transfer of federal funds to schools and districts that engage in discriminatory conduct. However, Valenzuela noted that, for “Spending Clause legislation, when Congress conditions federal funds on compliance with specified requirements, it must provide recipients with ‘clear notice’ of those conditions so they can make an informed choice whether to accept the funds and the accompanying obligations.”
In her ruling, Valenzuela determined that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any state to obtain a clear and concise overview of current standards when the standards themselves appear subject to near-constant change and overarching ambiguity.
“In 2015, the Department of Education stated that schools generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in sex-separated settings,” Valenzuela wrote. “The Departments of Education and Justice adopted the same position in joint guidance the following year.” But, Valenzuela said, “The Executive Branch changed course again in 2021,” with further revisions in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
“The history confirms that Title IX and its implementing regulations did not provide clear notice of Plaintiff’s asserted funding condition,” the judge said. “Federal officials repeatedly gave materially different answers to how Title IX applies to transgender students, and in 2023 the Department itself acknowledged that the existing athletics regulations were ‘not sufficiently clear’ on eligibility criteria.”
In response to Valenzuela’s ruling, a Justice Department spokesperson said that the agency is “evaluating our options for appeal.”
“We are disappointed by the Court’s order, and remain committed to enforcing President Trump’s agenda preventing boys from playing in girls’ sports,” the Justice Department said.
Sources
Federal judge tosses Trump lawsuit over young trans athletes in California school sports
Judge dismisses Justice Department lawsuit challenging California transgender sports policies
United States v. California Interscholastic Federation (8:25-cv-01485)
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