The Justice Department gave California high schools one week to confirm that they will comply with the Trump administration’s stance on transgender athletes as the government takes aim at the state’s regulations allowing students to compete on the basis of gender identity.

Forty-eight hours after a transgender athlete placed first in two events at the California high school track and field championship, and second in another, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon issued a letter to public high schools across the state warning them that allowing such competition could constitute “unconstitutional sex discrimination” under the Equal Protection Clause. 

Recommended Stories

• Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court allows nonbinary identifier on birth certificates
• Trump administration can’t avoid 'free speech' trial on student protests: Judge
• Boulder suspect charged with federal hate crime for targeting ‘Zionist group’

“Knowingly depriving female students of athletic opportunities and benefits on the basis of their sex would constitute unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause,” Dhillon, who heads the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said in the letter. “Scientific evidence shows that upsetting the historical status quo and forcing girls to compete against males would deprive them of athletic opportunities and benefits because of their sex.”

President Donald Trump also weighed in on the matter Tuesday, saying that “large scale fines” would be imposed on California after AB Hernandez, a 16-year-old transgender-identifying biological male from Jurupa Valley High School, claimed medals in the women’s state track-and-field championships on Saturday. 

Transgender athletes are permitted to compete against peers of the opposite biological sex under guidelines set by the California Interscholastic Federation, the Golden State’s governing body for high school sports. The CIF’s guidelines have legal backing from a 2013 state law that allows transgender athletes to compete on the basis of gender identity instead of biological sex. California’s Democratic attorney general, Rob Bonta, has pledged to follow state guidelines over the Trump administration’s federal guidance, which enforces Title IX on the basis of biological sex and prohibits biological males from playing in women’s sports. 

The government argues that allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports violates Title IX and the 14th Amendment because it requires female athletes to compete with males, stripping them of the ability to participate in women-only sports, even though male athletes have men-only sports.

In her letter on Monday, Dhillon warned that to “avoid legal liability,” public school districts must “certify in writing” by Monday, June 9, that they will not abide by CIF’s gender identity rules. Failure to do so puts over 1,600 California schools in likely violation of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, the DOJ said. 

The DOJ’s admonition comes during a months-long feud between the Trump administration and California over whether biological males should be able to compete on female teams. 

The Department of Education has been investigating California over the issue since February. 

Last week, Trump weighed in on the debate as Hernandez prepared to compete in the state high school track and field championships. The president threatened on May 27 to withhold federal funding from California “maybe permanently” if Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) continued to “illegally allow men to play in women’s sports.” 

The following day, the DOJ announced an investigation into the matter. After it got involved, the CIF revealed it was changing its rules, expanding protections for biological female athletes while still holding policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. Under the new guidance, biological females who come in second place behind a transgender athlete will now share the first-place win. 

The tweaks to the rules weren’t enough for Trump, who said “large scale” fines would be imposed on schools for failing to comply with the White House after Hernandez swept the state championships on Saturday. 

“A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social. “As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!”

Tensions ran high over Hernandez’s participation in the championship finals over the weekend. 

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS ‘SICKENED’ AFTER NEWSOM BACKPEDALS ON TRANSGENDER SPORTS

Police arrested one LGBT protester after they were accused of violently hitting a conservative demonstrator with a pride flag pole and denting his car, according to Fox News Digital. 

Meanwhile, a plane could be spotted flying over the competition with a banner reading, “No Boys in Girls’ Sports!”