ADVOCATES FOR FAITH & FREEDOM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2025

CONTACT: Nicole Velasco
NVELASCO@FAITH-FREEDOM.COM

Murrieta, CA— Today, two female high school athletes from California, K.S. and T.S., along with their families, and the Save Girls’ Sports association, filed an amended federal lawsuit against the State of California, Riverside Unified School District, and school officials. The lawsuit now challenges AB 1266, the radical California law that requires schools to allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports and use female bathrooms. This law conflicts with federal Title IX protections, which were established to ensure fairness, safety, and equal opportunities for female students and athletes.

AB 1266 undermines female athletes, forcing them to compete against biological males who hold undeniable physical advantages. This is not equality. This is an assault on fairness, safety, and the

As a result of AB 1266 and the school district’s discriminatory practices, school officials removed T.S. from the girls’ varsity cross-country team and replaced her with a biological male who had previously broken female cross-country records at another high school. In an effort to speak out against this unfair treatment, T.S. and K.S. wore shirts displaying the message “Save Girls’ Sports” and “It’s Common Sense. XX ≠ XY.” However, school officials then ordered them to remove or cover the messages, labeling the shirts as “hostile” and comparing the shirts to swastikas.

The lawsuit names California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and Attorney General Rob Bonta for enforcing AB 1266, along with Riverside Unified School District officials Principal Leann Iacuone and Assistant Principal Amanda Chann, who discriminated against K.S., T.S., and members of the Save Girls’ Sports Association.

Since filing the lawsuit, more than 200 students have worn the “Save Girls’ Sports” shirts on campus in solidarity with K.S. and T.S., sending a clear message to school administrators and State officials that discrimination against female athletes will not be tolerated. 

Advocates attorney Julianne Fleischer stated, “The government is steamrolling over women’s rights with radical policies that dismantle fairness in sports and muzzle those who dare to defend it. This is not progress; it is regression. Female athletes train, sacrifice, and compete to win—not to be sidelined by an ideology that ignores biological reality.”

Attorney Robert Tyler added, “Title IX was created to protect female athletes from exactly this kind of injustice. The idea that biological males should take spots from young women is an outright betrayal of the law’s intent. We applaud President Trump for taking decisive action to restore fairness and demand that California abandon this destructive agenda before it erases a generation of female athletes.”

Plaintiffs seek a federal ruling that AB 1266 violates Title IX as well as a decision holding the District accountable for violating their First Amendment rights. They demand injunctive relief to stop schools from forcing biological girls to compete with and against males, a judgment affirming sex-based protections in athletics, and compensation for damages caused by these discriminatory policies.

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Advocates for Faith & Freedom is a non-profit law firm dedicated to protecting constitutional and religious liberty in the courts. Our mission is to engage in cases that will uphold our religious liberty and America’s heritage and to educate Americans about our fundamental constitutional rights.

Today, Advocates for Faith and Freedom, together with North Carolina Values Institute, filed an amicus curiae brief in the Chiles v. Salazar case, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case which challenges Colorado’s “Censorship Law” for licensed counselors. This law targets faith-based counseling practices by prohibiting speech that aligns with traditional, religious values regarding gender identity and sexual orientation. Yet, the same law allows, and even encourages, conversations that the government favors regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.  Such blatant viewpoint discrimination violates the First Amendment’s protections for free speech and religious liberty.

Colorado’s law compels counselors to suppress their deeply held beliefs, forcing faith-based professionals to choose between their livelihoods and their faith. Counseling is a profession that uniquely touches religion. Religion and counseling both involve speech, thoughts, emotions, conduct, conscience, morality, and values. Counselors are not robots, and values cannot be extracted from counseling. Persons who seek counseling are best served by a system that incorporates respect for the values and conscience of both counselor and counselee. Colorado’s unconstitutional law fails to do so.

Advocates for Faith and Freedom is committed to protecting the foundational freedoms of speech and religion, ensuring counselors can serve their clients without compromising their faith. This case represents a critical moment for the Supreme Court to reaffirm constitutional principles and safeguard the rights of people of faith.

Thank you for standing with us as we defend these essential freedoms.

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Advocates for Faith & Freedom is a non-profit law firm dedicated to protecting constitutional and religious liberty in the courts. Our mission is to engage in cases that will uphold our religious liberty and America’s heritage and to educate Americans about our fundamental constitutional rights.