Battle over trans students in girl’s sports pulls on purse strings

April 26, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

The battle over allowing trans students to compete in girls sports has parents in San Luis Obispo County choosing sides, threatening financial losses and reaching out to federal prosecutors.

Federal laws require schools receiving federal funding to provide girls an equal opportunity to compete in sports. However, laws in California allow boys and girls competing in sports to use locker rooms of the gender they identify with, regardless of their biological gender.

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration filed a suit against Maine for not complying with an executive order banning transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports. Trump has also threatened to cut off crucial federal funding.

And now it appears the Department of Justice is also focusing on San Luis Obispo County – specifically the Lucia Mar Unified School District, according to an email shared with CalCoastNews. It is suspected the district will receive a letter in the next few weeks asking it to comply with federal laws or risk losing federal funds.

The federal government provided about $8 billion, or about 6% of total funding in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, to kindergarten through twelve grade schools in the state, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

During a Lucia Mar board meeting on April 15, Arroyo Grande High School track and field athlete Celeste Duyst cried as she described a trans athlete in the girl’s locker room watching her and other biological females change into their track suits, noting the trans athlete does not change in the locker room.

Duyst’s public comment made national news after Colleen Martin, Lucia Mar’s board president, told Duyst, “Okay, please wrap it up.”

Another student, Bibi Shah, blamed adults in the community for alleging “trans people attending our school and participating in school activities is causing psychological trauma.” Shah said she supports trans athletes showing school spirit and participating in sports.

State law currently allows students to participate in sports based on the gender in which they identify. SLO County Superintendent of Schools James Brescia is concerned that a failure to comply with California law could result in a loss of state funding.

In a separate attempt to impact school funding, a group of parents of elementary through high school school students across SLO County plan to keep their children home for one day later this month to protest transgender athletes competing in girls’ sports and using female bathrooms.

California Parents for Change wants local schools to ban biological males from girl’s bathrooms and sports and to prohibit menstrual product machines in boy’s bathrooms.

The group is giving school districts in SLO County until April 27 to “show compliance.” If their demands are not met, parents in the group plan to keep their children home on April 28 and then one day each month until local school districts “adhere to Federal Law, respecting Title IX and executive orders that safeguard the rights of all our children, sons and daughters alike.”

The protest is designed to cause financial damage at a time many school districts are working through tough financial times. Funding for school districts is based on daily attendance.

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