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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) released new information as a result of an investigation that demonstrates that the State of California—which has engaged in ruthless lawfare against the Trump Administration—may lack sufficient actual evidence to support its radical lawsuit challenging Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
On June 10, 2025, California sued the Trump Administration to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports, claiming that it is a vital government interest to let “transgender athletes” participate based on their “gender identity.” The lawsuit alleges that “transgender athletes” will suffer emotional and academic harm if required to compete based on their biological sex. It also asserts that the Trump Administration’s actions “increase the risk that [transgender students] will suffer severe physical, mental, emotional, or academic harm as a result of discrimination and exclusion.”
In order to bring a lawsuit in federal court, a party must have “standing,” meaning proof of injury that can be redressed by the courts. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has already filed a motion to dismiss California’s lawsuit, arguing the state lacks standing because it has failed to show evidence of any actual harm.
On August 25, 2025, AFL filed California Public Records Act requests with the California Department of Justice, the California Department of Education, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), seeking records regarding “harassment, assault, or other abuse by or from students asserting a gender-identity other than the one they were born with.” AFL also requested all records of competitions won by “transgender girls.”
California has been unable to provide a single responsive record in response to AFL’s requests.
On August 28, 2025, the Civil Rights Department responded, stating, “regarding part one of your request, CRD searched for records of complaints filed by the California Interscholastic Federation and identified no responsive records.” Further, it stated that “CRD does not maintain data in a manner that would enable it to conduct a search for reports,” as described in parts two and three of AFL’s request. On September 15, CIF responded that, based on a “good faith interpretation of [AFL’s] request… CIF has determined that it does not have documents responsive to” any part of AFL’s request. The California Department of Education has not provided a response.
California’s failure to provide a single responsive record to support the claims in its lawsuit raises serious questions about the state’s ability to prove that any Californians have suffered actual harm.
“How can the State of California say with a straight face that its transgendered athletes will suffer harm when its own Civil Rights Department ‘does not maintain data’?” said Dan Epstein, Vice President of America First Legal.
Read AFL’s records requests here.
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