transgender

Ed Dept. Finds San José State Violated Title IX With Male Athlete in Women’s Volleyball

In a win for women’s athletics, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that San José State University discriminated against women by allowing a male to participate in women’s volleyball and use female-only facilities.

The OCR announced it is giving SJSU a Proposed Resolution Agreement “to voluntarily resolve its Title IX violations.” Among other requests, the agreement asks the school to publicly acknowledge there are two unchangeable sexes and apologize to female athletes.

Blaire Fleming, a male athlete who identifies as “transgender,” played on SJSU’s women’s volleyball team from 2022-2024, redshirting during his last year.

Trent Kerston, head coach at that time, recruited Fleming and gave him an athletic scholarship and spot on the team – both of which should have gone to a woman – but hid Fleming’s natal sex from his teammates.

Teammates and women from opposing teams suspected that Fleming was male, due to the strength of his hits and height of his jumps. But the team only found out the truth in April 2024, when Reduxx, a feminist news and opinion outlet, published an article titled “EXCLUSIVE: Biological Male Quietly Joined Women’s NCAA Division I Volleyball At San Jose State University.”

In its announcement, the OCR stated that San José State violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal financial assistance.

The OCR found that SJSU “actively recruited and allowed a male to compete on the women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams and reportedly instructed members of the coaching staff not to tell the female players that the athlete was a male.”

The office noted the resulting loss of privacy for Fleming’s teammates:

As a result, female athletes on the team shared women’s locker rooms and hotel rooms with the male student while being unaware that he is a member of the opposite sex.

OCR added:

In addition to privacy concerns, the presence of this male athlete presented a safety concern for female athletes and provided SJSU’s volleyball team with an unfair physical advantage over opposing teams.
On multiple occasions, the male athlete spiked the ball so forcefully that it knocked females on the opposing team to the ground. During one season, seven all-women’s teams from other universities forfeited their competitions, accepting a loss rather than competing against a male.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon explained the damage on X:

San José State University caused significant harm to female athletes by allowing a male to compete on the women’s volleyball team – and when female athletes spoke out, SJSU retaliated.

The OCR’s Resolution Agreement requires SJSU to:

  • Issue a public statement to the SJSU community that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words “male” and “female” and acknowledge that the sex of a human – male or female – is unchangeable.
  • Specify that SJSU will follow Title IX by separating sports and intimate facilities based on biological sex.
  • State that SJSU will not delegate its obligation to comply with Title IX to any external association or entity and will not contract with any entity that discriminates on the basis of sex.
  • Restore to individual female athletes all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s categories, and issue a personalized letter of apology on behalf of SJSU to each female athlete for allowing her participation in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.
  • Send a personalized apology to every woman who played in SJSU’s women’s indoor volleyball (2022–2024), 2023 beach volleyball, and to any woman on a team that forfeited rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster – expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position. 

SJSU, the Mountain West Conference and the NCAA are also facing lawsuits from Fleming’s teammates, women from opposing teams and a former assistant coach who faced retaliation from the school for filing a Title IX complaint.

But the university remains between a rock and a hard place. While the federal government cracks down on males in women’s sports and private spaces, the California attorney general is suing to stop those efforts.

In addition, California law prohibits “discrimination on the basis of … gender, gender identity, [and] gender expression.” So SJSU may run afoul of state law for acceding to the U.S. Department of Education demands.

The Daily Citizen will continue to keep you informed about this and other battles to protect girls and women’s sports, privacy and safety.

Related articles and resources:

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports  

Four Women’s Volleyball Teams Forfeit — Won’t Play Team with a Man

NCAA and San Jose State ‘Transgender’ Volley Player Usurp Women’s Rights

NCAA Ban on Men in Women’s Sports ‘Toothless,’ Say Advocates, Gaines

Riley Gaines and 15 Other Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over ‘Transgender Policy’

San Jose Coach Suspended for Filing Discrimination Complaint Against Transgender Player

SJSU Hired Same Law Firm to Simultaneously Defend and Investigate Male Athlete on Women’s Team

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Photo from Getty Images.

Whistleblower Dr. Eithan Haim Sues Texas Children’s Hospital Over Malicious Prosecution

Dr. Eithan Haim exposed Texas Children’s Hospital’s (TCH) secret “transgender” medical program in 2023. Now, he is suing the hospital for malicious prosecution.

Haim’s complaint alleges TCH, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and their representatives fed false information about Haim to government officials, resulting in the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrongfully indicting him for violating patient privacy laws.

Haim’s coworkers lied, the filing argues, to punish him for sending redacted medical documents to investigative journalist Christopher Rufo. The information showed TCH continued performing sex-rejecting medical procedures on children long after it claimed to stop in March 2022. 

The DOJ dropped its deeply flawed case against Haim in January 2025, sparing the husband and father up to ten years in jail and $250,000 in fines. But the court battle took a heavy toll on Haim and his young family.

Haim announced his suit against TCH on X last week, thanking his legal team and benefactor Elon Musk, who will reportedly cover Haim’s legal bills, for enabling him to pursue justice in court.

Haim further thanked his original attorney, Marcella Burke, for supporting him long before his case gained national attention.

“She took the greatest risk in representing me [in 2023] and endlessly sacrificed for the next two years,” the surgeon wrote.

“She is the reason my wife has her husband and my daughter, her father.”

The facts laid out in Haim’s complaint, if true, answer some of the biggest questions left over from the DOJ’s defunct suit against him.

Why did the DOJ’s original indictment get so many facts wrong?

The DOJ charged Dr. Haim with four felony HIPAA violations in May 2024. The original indictment alleged:

  • Haim improperly accessed TCH’s medical records long after his work with the hospital ended in January 2021.
  • Haim released private patient information to Rufo in violation of HIPAA.

Both claims proved false. Dr. Haim worked with adult and pediatric patients at TCH through April 2023. In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the hospital admitted it gave Haim access to the records he viewed while employed there.

Haim also redacted all identifying patient details in the photos he exported to Rufo. Though prosecutor Tina Ansari claimed the government possessed other evidence showing Haim disclosed private patient information, such evidence never materialized.

In his malicious prosecution suit, Haim claims the government got these key facts wrong because it believed false statements made by representatives of TCH and BCM.

The complaint cites an interview between Ansari and Dr. Larry Hollier Jr., the Surgeon-In-Chief and Chair of Surgery at TCH and Vice Chair of Surgery at BCM, one month before Ansari filed the erroneous indictment against Haim.

In the interview, Hollier Jr. claimed Haim:

  • Was not “assigned to care for minors in any way” when he accessed information about pediatric files and surgical schedules.
  • Had no work-related reason to access TCH medical records when he shared information with Rufo.

Afsheen Davis, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for TCH, witnessed Hollier’s interview. At the time, Haim’s complaint argues, both Davis and Hollier would have known or had access to the information which eventually proved the Surgeon-In-Chief’s statements false.

How did the federal government know to investigate Dr. Haim while he was still an anonymous whistleblower?

Two HHS agents informed Dr. Haim he was the target of a DOJ investigation in June 2023 — six months before he went public as Rufo’s whistleblower.

“It can take years to approach a target [of an investigation],” Burke told the Daily Citizen in 2024, “but federal officers were at [Dr. Haim’s] home a little over a month after Rufo published his first story.”

Haim’s malicious prosecution suit presents evidence showing defendants Davis and Hollier met with the two HHS agents just four days before the duo approached Haim.

The timing further supports Haim’s allegation that the defendants initiated and informed the DOJ case against him.

Why did the government choose to prosecute an alleged HIPAA violation as a felony?

Dr. Haim is the first American charged with a felony HIPAA violation absent evidence he sold or otherwise profited from sharing patient information.

Haim’s malicious prosecution case argues TCH and BCM searched for a sympathetic prosecutor to throw the book at Haim because they wanted to punish him for revealing the hospital’s secret, sex-rejecting medical program.

Enter Ansari, whom the DOJ removed from the case in November 2024 after Haim’s legal team revealed her family’s close financial relationship with TCH.

Evidence of the defendants’ malice goes beyond communicating false information to federal prosecutors. Just eight days after HHS agents showed up at Haim’s door, defendant Dr. Kristy Rialon, a pediatric surgeon at TCH and Associate Professor of Surgery at BCM, began posting anonymous comments on his WebMD page falsely accusing him of being a bad doctor.  

She allegedly went so far as to pose as one of Haim’s former patients and claim he had sexually assaulted her.

Rialon later admitted to federal agents that she posted the fake comments.

Harm Done

TCH and BCM’s alleged lies upended Dr. Haim’s life. He and his wife spent their life’s savings fighting the DOJ’s prosecution in court. He remains “blacklisted” from major hospitals and academic institutions, which prevent him from getting crucial credentials and privileges.

The emotional scars of Haim’s experience also run deep. For most of 2024, he contended with the real possibility of going to jail before the birth of his first child. The death threats against himself and his family leave Haim worried for their safety.

Sex-rejecting procedures harm minors. Dr. Eithan Haim performed a brave, honorable and selfless service by revealing TCH’s secret perpetuation of these devastating interventions. He has suffered greatly for it.

The Daily Citizen prays the court will render swift justice for Haim and his family.

Additional Articles and Resources

Haim Vindicated — DOJ Dismisses Case Against Whistleblower

New Evidence Upends Haim Trial; New Momentum for Whistleblower

Evidence Reveals DOJ Oversight in Haim Case

Special Guests (The FBI) Show Up at Nurses’ House After Exposing Illegal Transgender Medical Interventions

EXCLUSIVE: Lawyer Marcella Burke talks representing whistleblower Eithan Haim and fighting child abuse.

EXCLUSIVE: The Daily Citizen interviews Dr. Eithan Haim, the surgeon who exposed a secret transgender medical program at Texas Children’s Hospital

HHS Finalizes Report Finding Sex-Rejecting Procedures Harm Minors

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

VIDEO: Daily Citizen Interviews Whistleblower Exposing Secret Transgender Program at Texas Children’s Hospital

More Hospitals Stop Mutilation of Sexually Confused Children

More hospitals and health systems announced they are stopping the chemical and surgical mutilation of children with sexual identity confusion. 

Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, Lurie Children’s Hospital in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and Children’s Hospital and UW Health in Wisconsin said they would no longer offer puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries to minors. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported an announcement from Children’s Hospital Wisconsin: 

We strongly believe everyone, including LGBTQ+ kids, should be treated with the support, respect, dignity and compassion they deserve. We are communicating to patients that due to escalating legal and federal regulatory risk facing systems and providers across the nation, we are currently unable to provide gender affirming pharmacologic care.

In San Diego, the local NBC affiliate reported that Rady Children’s was “under federal investigation by the Health and Human Services’ Inspector General.” 

The outlet reported that a fifteen-year-old girl named Evelyn, who identifies as “nonbinary” and goes by the name “Enfys,” was scheduled for a double mastectomy at the children’s hospital, but the shutdown protected her from this body-mutilating surgery. 

For now, at least, this teenage girl, caught in “transgender” ideology, will not have perfectly healthy organs cut off.  

These “gender clinics” have joined at least 33 hospitals and medical facilities across the country that stopped treating confused minors with destructive transgender procedures in 2025, reports Do No Harm, a pro-child group of medical professionals, patients and policy makers. 

Many hospitals have said they are “pausing” such interventions, so that a change in federal policies means they would again start sterilizing and mutilating minors.

“Gender clinics” began backing away from attempting to make children look like the opposite sex after President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order on January 28, 2025, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation. 

The order explained the need to end the use of destructive puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries for children with sexual identity confusion: 

Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.

The executive order went on to explain federal policy toward these damaging medical interventions: 

Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.

Every federal agency “that provides research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals” was directed to “immediately take appropriate steps to ensure that institutions receiving Federal research or education grants end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

The executive order was enough to bring almost immediate shutdowns of children’s gender clinics, including at Children’s Hospital, in Washington, D.C.; Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; and Virginia Commonwealth University Health & Children’s Hospital of Richmond. 

The executive order also directed the Department of Justice to investigate “any entity that may be misleading the public about long-term side effects of chemical and surgical mutilation.” 

Attorney General Pam Bondi followed that directive with an April 2025 memorandum to DOJ agencies, including the FBI, titled “Preventing the Mutilation of American Children.” 

DOJ agencies were told to investigate groups, including medical professionals, for “junk science and false claims about the effects of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ to justify the barbaric practice of surgically and chemically maiming and sterilizing children.”

That led the FBI, in June 2025, to post an announcement asking people to “report tips of any hospitals, clinics, or practitioners performing these surgical procedures on children.” 

Those further actions by the federal agencies led to even more medical facilities halting the mutilation of minors. 

Nineteen states and radical LGBT activist groups like Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and PFLAG (formerly Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) have filed three lawsuits attacking Trump’s executive order. Although judges have blocked enforcement of the order, the DOJ continues to investigate hospitals and doctors who harm children. 

While the Trump administration and 25 states have taken action to prevent these harmful medical interventions, the opposition to safeguarding children demonstrates that Christians and conservatives must continue to work against transgender ideology. 

As Christians, we must have compassion on children — and adults — struggling with sexual identity confusion. But true compassion means protecting those struggling from harmful and damaging drugs, hormones and surgeries.

Related articles and resources: 

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Shuts Down Harmful ‘Center for Transyouth’

Chloe Cole: Gender Reassignment Surgery Regret

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

Doctor Refuses to Publish Major Study Finding Puberty-Blocking Drugs Don’t Help Children

FBI Investigates Three Major Hospitals for Mutilating Children

FDA Sends Warning Letters to Companies Promoting Sex-Rejecting Breast Binders

FTC Begins Investigating ‘Gender-Affirming’ Medical Community for Deception, False Advertising

HHS Will Block Hospitals From Performing Sex-Rejecting, Mutilating Procedures on Children

Key Takeaways from Supreme Court Case on ‘Transgender’ Interventions

President Trump Signs Order Protecting Children From Transgender Medical Interventions

Sign These Three Ballot Petitions to Protect Kids and Parental Rights in Colorado

Transgender Resources

Understanding “Transgenderism”

The WPATH Files Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’

The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’

Activist Erin Friday on Protecting Kids and Fighting ‘Gender’ Ideology

Read part one of the Daily Citizen‘s interview with pro-child activist Erin Friday here.

Child Protective Services knocked on Erin Friday’s door in 2020 after she refused to treat her 13-year-old daughter as a boy. Now, the attorney and activist fights every day to protect the rights of parents who affirm their children’s biological sex.

Not everyone can draft legislation or lobby America’s most powerful leaders, as Friday does. But everyone can contribute to the fight to protect kids and parents from gender ideology.

First and foremost, Friday tells the Daily Citizen, parents must talk to their kids about sex and biology before LGBT activists do.

“Gender ideologues are getting to our kids in preschool, before we think we even have to talk about this,” Friday warns. “We just really need to get out in front of it.”

She suggests parents start teaching their children about their bodies as young as two years old, emphasizing:

  • Everyone’s body is beautiful.
  • No one can their change sex.
  • No one is born in the wrong body.
  • There can’t be a mismatch between your brain and body.

Parents can teach these foundational concepts using Focus on the Family-approved children’s books like I Don’t Have to Choose, Elephants are Not Birds and She is She.

You can access the full list of age-appropriate books here.

Parents should also teach their kids to distrust people who encourage them to hide something from their parents, Friday recommends. LGBT activists in schools frequently coach children to hide their sexual identity confusion from their parents.

“If parents don’t think it’s happening at their school, they’re wrong,” she emphasizes. “It’s happening at every school, including Catholic schools [and] private schools.”

Learning about gender ideology and its impact on kids and parental rights can feel overwhelming — but it’s not an impossible task. Friday recommends parents read Miriam Grossman’s Lost in Trans Nation and Erin Brewer’s Parenting in a Transgender World to get the lay of the land.

Focus on the Family offers a wide range of resources to help parents understand and combat gender ideology in their homes, classrooms, churches and communities. You can view the resource list here.

Education is just the first step toward joining Friday in the fight against gender ideology. Change simply does not occur without the courage and sacrifice of ordinary people.

“We need people showing up,” Friday says frankly. “It does us no good if people just complain about this and stay at their kitchen table.”

The easiest way to get involved, says Friday, is to write, call and email your political representatives to show you care about parents’ rights and want to see them protected.

Friday also recommends donating to nonprofits supporting parents and families — particularly those which help parents who do not affirm sexual identity confusion to fight for custody of their children.

If parents run out of ideas, Friday says her organization, Our Duty USA, will put them to work or connect them to local efforts to promoting parents’ rights.

To learn about parental rights issues affecting your state and find ways to get involved, Focus on the Family recommends contacting your local Family Policy Council.

The Daily Citizen appreciates Friday’s courage and clarity in protecting kids from sex-rejecting interventions. We encourage parents and citizens to use the resources above to get involved in the fight.

To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).

Additional Articles and Resources

Counseling Services

Transgender Resources

Erin Friday on Family Courts, ‘Transgender’ Sanctuary States and Fighting to Protect Parental Rights

Proposed Executive Order Would Protect Parental Rights

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Indiana Family Loses Custody of Son Over Religious Beliefs; Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case

‘Art Club’ Documentary—One Family’s Escape from Gender Ideology, and the Bigger Trend Sweeping the Nation

HHS Finalizes Report Finding Sex-Rejecting Procedures Harm Minors

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

Washington State Citizens Fight for Parents’ Rights, Girls Sports

Supporters of parents’ rights and girls sports submitted two citizen initiatives to the Washington State Legislature. 

Restoring the Parents’ Bill of Rights, IL26-001, repeals sections of legislation passed in 2025 that stripped parents of their rights in education. 

The measure guarantees parents have access to their children’s instructional materials and school records; requires parental notification when schools provide medical services; allows parents to opt children out of surveys, questionnaires and sexual education; and assures families their religious beliefs will be respected. 

Initiative Measure IL26-638, Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports, prohibits “male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities with separate classifications for male and female students.” 

Brian Noble, CEO of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, explained to the Daily Citizen, “Both initiatives are a demonstration of how citizens in Washington can impact policy despite conservatives being significantly outnumbered in both the Washington House and Senate.” 

He added: 

God has given us a scriptural mandate to be engaged actively on the battlefield of the public square. Scripture calls Christians to steward all that God has created, including the governmental sphere.

Let’s Go Washington collected more than 416,000 signatures for the parents’ rights initiative and more than 445,000 signatures for the girls sports measure. Valid signatures from 308,911 voters are needed to send the measure to the legislature. 

Brian Heywood, leader of Let’s Go Washington, commented on the two measures to the Washington State Standard, bluntly stating, “This is not a partisan issue, this is a common sense issue.” 

The measures have “broad support,” he added, with more than half of the signatures coming from liberals and independents. 

Both proposals are “indirect initiated state statutes,” citizen-initiated ballot measures that are first presented to the Washington Legislature. According to Ballotpedia, the Legislature then has three options:  

  1. Adopt the initiative into law without sending it to the voters.
  2. Reject or not act on the initiative, in which case it is placed on the ballot for voters to decide.
  3. Approve an alternative version, in which case both the original proposal and the legislative alternative are placed on the ballot at the next state general election.

Current reports suggest the legislature will let the measures go the voters in November. 

The Parents’ Bill of Rights has a convoluted history. In 2024, Let’s Go Washington submitted enough signatures to send Initiative 2081, the first version of A Parents’ Bill of Rights, to the state legislature. The initiative passed and was signed into law. 

But then the legislature engaged in some tricksy behavior by passing HB 1296, a law which undermined local control of schools, supposedly “balanced” student rights with parents rights and actually eliminated some parents rights. Among other things, the legislation: 

  • Increased the time for schools to share records with parents from 10 business days to 45. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to access certain public school records, including medical or health records, and records of any mental health counseling.
  • Eliminated a parent’s right to be notified by public schools prior to medical services or medications being offered or referred to his or her child (even when it will cost parents).
  • Stripped the parental right to be notified and opt a child out of personally invasive surveys, assignments, role-playing activities, recordings or other student engagements. 
  • Removed a parent’s right to be notified if his/her child is taken or removed from a public school campus to stay at a youth shelter or “host home.” 

The new measure restores the original Parents’ Bill of Rights, rolling back the damaging effects of HB 1296. 

The Protecting Fairness in Girls Sports measure is also very much needed in Washington State. In December, Washington’s alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger reported, “In Washington, trans girls and boys have played with, and against, cis girls and boys for nearly two decades.” 

“Cis” is a term made up by transgender activists to designate real boys and girls, rather than those who mimic the opposite sex with clothes, makeup, drugs, hormones and surgeries. 

Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) requires all local educational agencies “to allow all students, including transgender and nonbinary students, the opportunity to participate on the interscholastic sports team that most closely aligns with their gender identity.” 

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education are currently investigating OSPI for allowing “males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities, thereby raising substantial Title IX concerns.” 

Family Policy Institute of Washington, a Focus on the Family-allied organization, supports both initiatives. Noble told us: 

FPIW has proudly supported these initiatives, and we will continue to advocate for parental rights and the safety of our children as these initiatives move through the legislative process. 

Focus on the Family also supports parental rights in education and protecting girls and women’s sports. We trust Washington Christians and conservatives will engage with the initiative process and support these to important measures. 

Related articles and resources: 

Family Policy Institute of Washington

Let’s Go Washington : Rally to Support The Initiatives

Athletes Rally at Supreme Court to Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Focus on the Family Transgender Resources

How to Get In Touch With Your State Policy Group

Meet Three Heroes Working to Protect Colorado Children

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

Supreme Court to Hear Title IX Girls Sports Case

Top 5 Moments From Supreme Court Arguments Over Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies