In response to a transgender high school track and field athlete who qualified for the state championship meet over the weekend, President Trump threatened to withhold federal funds from California on Tuesday and directed local officials to prevent the student from competing.
Trump attacked 16-year-old AB Hernandez, a junior at Jurupa Valley High School in Southern California, in a post on Truth Social.
Hernandez qualified for the state championships scheduled for May 30-31 by winning the girls long jump and triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section Masters meet on May 24.
Hernandez claimed to have competed on the boys team in the past and won “everything” at the meet, including qualifying for the state championships in the high jump and tying for fourth place.
In an April interview with California nonprofit news group Capital and Main, Hernandez’s mother, Nereyda, stated that her daughter came out as transgender in the eighth grade.
“THIS IS NOT FAIR, AND TOTALLY DEMEANING TO WOMEN AND GIRLS,” Trump stated on Tuesday. “Please be hereby advised that large scale Federal Funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the Executive Order on this subject matter is not adhered to.”
In February, Trump signed an order threatening to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” and declaring that “it is the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports.”
Trump declared his administration will not permit transgender athletes to compete in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles during a signing ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Maine is one of several Democratic-led states that have defied Trump’s order, claiming it violates state anti-discrimination laws.
In reaction to Trump’s directive, the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees high school athletics in the Golden State, declared that it would uphold a 2013 regulation that permits transgender athletes to play on teams that correspond to their gender identity.
Soon later, the Department of Education declared that it had launched a Title IX investigation on the group.
Trump declared on Tuesday that he is “directing local authorities, if required, to forbid” Hernandez from participating in the state championships the following weekend. When asked whose state authorities Trump cited, the White House did not reply. Local law enforcement is not directly under the president’s control.
Trump also stated that he will talk to California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday. In the March premiere of his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” Newsom stated that he thinks it is “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in women’s and girls’ sports.
The following month, Newsom stated at a news conference in Modesto, California, that he would be “open” to a discussion regarding restricting the participation of trans athletes, if it were carried out “in a way that’s respectful and responsible and could find a kind of balance.”
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The California Interscholastic Federation announced later on Tuesday that it had made the decision over the weekend to permit “any biological female student-athlete” to compete in the track and field championships the following weekend if she would have qualified in an event where a transgender girl took a qualifying slot.
The governor “is encouraged by this thoughtful approach,” according to the Newsom spokesperson. A request for comment on the new policy was not immediately answered by the White House.
Protests against transgender girls participating in girls’ sports have been directed at Hernandez for months.
Over two dozen adults, including three members of the local school board, heckled Hernandez for hours at a recent track meet in Orange County. At one point, they raised their voices loud enough to cause a false start in another event.
“I’m still a child and you’re an adult, and for you to still act like a child shows how you are as a person,” Hernandez stated. “There’s nothing I can do about people’s actions, just focus on my own.”
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She said that the majority of her rivals and teammates back her.
Hernandez’s season-best triple jump of 41 feet, 9 inches ties for ninth place nationally and is the longest among California high school girls this year. She also owns the second-longest long jump in the state.
Superintendent Trenton Hansen addressed the possibility of the district losing its financing during a March meeting of the Jurupa Unified School District Board of Education.
“There is the threat from the federal government to withhold funding, there’s threats from the state government to withhold funding if we violate laws,” Hansen stated. “Unfortunately, school districts are placed in the middle of this tug of war. All the information we’ve received from legal counsel … is that we follow the laws here in California, that executive orders do not carry the weight of the force of law, and that these issues will need to be figured out in the court system.”
