The U.S. Justice Department sued California on Wednesday over the state’s policy allowing transgender student athletes to compete in female sports, which the department said violates federal anti-discrimination laws.

“The Governor of California has previously admitted that it is ‘deeply unfair’ to force women and girls to compete with men and boys in competitive sports,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi, referencing a controversial comment Gov. Gavin Newsom made on his podcast in March. “But not only is it ‘deeply unfair,’ it is also illegal under federal law. This Department of Justice will continue its fight to protect equal opportunities for women and girls in sports.”A spokesperson for the governor’s office said Wednesday that the “ongoing attack” is a “cynical attempt to distract” from the Trump administration’s withholding of billions in education funding, which the governor’s office called a “defunding of nearly 3 million girls enrolled in California’s public school.”

The governor’s office said the state is following an existing law signed in 2013 by Gov. Jerry Brown — AB 1266 — which explicitly protects the rights of transgender students to compete on teams that match their gender identity. The Justice Department launched an investigation in May to determine whether that law violates Title IX.

“No court has adopted the interpretation of Title IX advanced by the federal government,” the governor’s office said in a statement punctuated in all caps. “Neither the governor, nor they, get to wave a magic wand and override it — unlike Donald Trump, California follows the law.”

The lawsuit is the latest development in an ongoing battle between President Donald Trump and California in the fight over transgender participation in sports. Tensions between the famously liberal state, which has repeatedly taken the administration to court on a range of issues, and Trump, who has vowed to crack down on transgender rights, have risen for months.

At California’s state track meet in late May, AB Hernandez — an openly transgender girl from Jurupa Valley — posted the top scores in the girls’ triple jump and high jump. Under rules enacted days prior, she shared first place with the girls who reached the second-farthest distance. The rule changes came after Trump threatened to pull federal funding from the state if she was allowed to participate.

At the college level, transgender San Jose State volleyball player Blaire Fleming was the subject of great discussion and became a target of Trump’s presidential campaign last fall for her participation with the Spartans’ women’s team. She was not out at the time, but revealed in a New York Times Magazine story this spring that she was transgender. The school is currently under a federal investigation over a potential civil rights violation for allowing a transgender athlete to compete on a women’s team.

The Trump administration also launched an investigation into the state’s education department over its policies on transgender athletes in February and an investigation in April into the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing body for high school athletics.

CIF declined to comment on the Justice Department’s lawsuit, saying it does not comment on legal matters. The California Department of Education said it cannot comment on pending litigation.

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement Wednesday the office “remains committed” to defending and upholding California laws and the rights of all students, including transgender students, to be free from discrimination and harassment.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education concluded its investigations into the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation and determined both agencies violated Title IX — a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination — by “allowing males in girls’ sports and intimate spaces.” The Trump administration gave California 10 days to resolve the violation by forbidding transgender athletes from female sports, restoring records and awards to female athletes who lost to transgender athletes and issuing personalized letters to female athletes apologizing for allowing their “educational experience to be marred by sex discrimination.”

California’s education department notified the U.S. Department of Education Monday that the department and CIF would not comply with the Trump administration’s demands.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit — filed in federal court in Los Angeles — seeks a permanent injunction directing all California CIF member schools to prohibit the participation of transgender athletes in female sports. The lawsuit also seeks to implement a monitoring and enforcement system to ensure compliance and to compensate female athletes who “have been denied equal athletic opportunities” due to the state’s alleged violations. The Justice Department’s lawsuit also seeks an award of damages to the U.S.

Sophia Lorey, outreach director for the California Family Council, a conservative advocacy group focused on pro-family policies and religious freedom, praised the Justice Department’s lawsuit.

“As a former athlete in California, I’m incredibly grateful the DOJ is stepping in to protect girls’ sports,” Lorey said. “Too many female athletes have been forced to compete against males, losing opportunities, titles and privacy. This lawsuit is a great step toward restoring fairness and enforcing Title IX the way it was intended.”

But LGBTQ+ advocacy groups pointed out that the Trump administration’s lawsuit aims to protect female students from discrimination while openly discriminating against transgender students.

“Transgender youth are not a threat but they continue to be targeted by the Trump administration in a coordinated campaign of hate and misinformation,” said Tony Hoang, the executive director of Equality California, a statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.

The lawsuit alleges California’s federal education funding from the U.S. Department of Education totals $44.3 billion for the 2025 fiscal year, of which $3.8 billion remains “available for drawdown” by the state’s education department. California received about $8 billion in federal funding for K-12 education and about $7 billion in federal funding for higher education in 2024.

“California is on the wrong side of the law and the wrong side of history,” said United States Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California. “Women deserve dignity, respect, and an equal opportunity to compete on their own sports teams. The time for talk is over. California must comply with Title IX and end its civil rights violations against women. No person, no state, is above the law.”

In April, the Trump administration sued Maine for not complying with the federal government’s ban on transgender athletes in female sports. The United States Department of Agriculture subsequently froze funding for school nutrition services, which was restored by a federal court and the USDA settled with Maine in May.

Shannon Minter, the legal director at the San Francisco-based National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said he was confident California would succeed in its battle to protect transgender student athletes, similar to Maine.

“This is really about much more than sports. This is part and parcel of this administration’s attack on public education and attempt to have the federal government…tell California and other states how to run their schools in ways that will be very destructive to our public education system,” Minter said. “It’s so hurtful to (kids) to see the president, the federal government openly attacking them. They’re just kids.”

Michael Nowels and Darren Sabedra contributed reporting.