Petition to CIF:

Dear Members of the CIF Board of Managers and Executive Staff,

We, the undersigned residents, parents, educators, coaches, and organizations from across California, write with deep concern about CIF’s current gender identity participation policy, adopted in 2013 under Bylaw 300 D.

This policy states that “all students should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on a student’s records.” Though some may have once believed this policy would promote fairness or inclusion, state leaders were warned from the beginning that it would harm female athletes—but those warnings were ignored. A decade later, the results speak for themselves. Every prediction made by concerned parents, coaches, and advocates has come true. And if this trend continues, it’s not hard to imagine a future where males who identify as female dominate every female competition—effectively erasing women’s sports altogether.

The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) currently allows males to compete in girls’ sports—a policy that undermines fairness, endangers safety, and violates the core principles of Title IX. Title IX is a federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. It was specifically designed to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities, including in athletics. CIF may claim it is merely following state law, but state law cannot override federal law. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal law—including Title IX—takes precedence over any conflicting state statute or policy. Both California and CIF are legally obligated to comply with Title IX, and by allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports, they are in direct violation of it.

Protecting Fairness and Opportunity

Girls’ sports exist because of the fundamental, biological differences between the sexes. Males, even post-puberty and under hormone therapy, retain physical advantages in speed, strength, lung capacity, and endurance. These biological realities cannot be erased by identity alone. When boys are permitted to compete in girls’ events:

• Female athletes lose championship titles and scholarship opportunities.
  
  
• They are denied a fair and level playing field.
  
  
• Their safety and privacy are put at risk—especially in contact sports and shared facilities.
  
  

CIF’s current policy makes no meaningful accommodation for these concerns. By valuing gender identity over biological sex, CIF has created an environment where girls are now second-class citizens in their own sports.

A Growing Public Outcry

Brave women and California athletes and parents have made it clear: this policy is failing our daughters. CIF must confront a difficult question: Who loses when males compete in girls’ sports? The girls. Every time.

As California Family Council’s own Sophia Lorey, a former college soccer player, powerfully stated:

“Girls should never be forced to compete against boys. We’ve sacrificed and fought too long for fairness under Title IX to allow it to be dismantled by policies that ignore science, evidence, and biological reality. This isn’t equality — it’s erasure.”

A Path Forward for CIF

We urge CIF to revise Bylaw 300 D by adopting a sex-based standard for participation in sex-segregated athletic competitions. Specifically, we call on you to:

1. Clarify that participation in girls’ sports divisions is reserved for females.
   
   
2. Follow the direction set by Executive Order 14201, issued under the Trump Administration, which clarified the federal government’s responsibility to protect girls’ and women’s access to fair competition under Title IX. This Executive Order reaffirmed that educational institutions receiving federal funds must not permit males to displace female athletes in female sports programs.
   
   
3. Commit to restoring compliance with Title IX and equal opportunity in athletics based on sex, not ideology.
   
   

California girls deserve better. They deserve fairness. They deserve safety. They deserve to compete on equal footing.

We urge CIF to lead courageously by standing for truth, science, and justice. Do not allow ideology to erase the rights of half the student body you are entrusted to serve.

For the girls of California,