transgender

Girls Volleyball Team Forfeits Game to Avoid Playing Boy

A high school girls volleyball team in California chose to forfeit a game against a male competitor last Friday, Fox News reports.

The girls’ bold sacrifice, and the support of their parents and educators, reflect Californians’ growing intolerance for boys playing girls sports.

Riverside Poly High School recorded a loss Friday after refusing to play against Jurupa Valley High School. Though the school did not provide a reason for the forfeit, parents and a Riverside Unified School District board member told Fox the team did not want to play Jurupa Valley’s AB Hernandez – a boy.

Hernandez is no stranger to winning girls events; he took first in the triple and high jumps at the California girls high school track and field championship in May.

His participation in girls’ volleyball isn’t just profoundly unfair — it’s dangerous.

Riverside Unified School District board member Amanda Vickers told Fox on Friday:

This is about [the] difference between biological girls and biological boys. And, tonight, the girls of Riverside Poly High School, they’re not going to end up like Payton McNabb.

McNabb suffered serious head trauma in 2022 after a male opponent spiked a ball into her face. The blow left the then-17-year-old with a severe concussion. She still struggles with partial paralysis and vision problems.

“I applaud these girls!” McNabb told Fox Digital in a statement of support for Riverside Poly. “They were put in a situation no young athlete should ever face — choosing between their safety and their sport.”

She continued:

What these girls did took real courage, and it’s devastating that they’re the ones paying the price for a decision made by adults.

California Family Council Outreach Director Sophia Lorey, who was escorted out of the state track and field championship for distributing “Save Girls Sports” bracelets, echoes McNabb.

“For high school girls to boldly say, ‘I will not put my safety at risk and aid in the erasure of girls sports’ is an incredibly difficult stand to take,” she told the Daily Citizen.

“I am both proud of and inspired by [these girls’] courage.”

The Riverside Poly girls volleyball team is just one group of many young California women standing up against boys in girls’ sports and private spaces. Their efforts have helped sour Californians on gender ideology in sports. A recent survey of nearly 3,000 California adults found most supported requiring students to participate on sports teams consistent with their biological sex, including:

  • 65% of adults surveyed.
  • 64% of likely voters.
  • 71% of parents with children in public schools.

But California institutions like the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) remain unwilling to protect girls’ rights.

CIF not only allows students like Hernandez to compete in sports consistent with their subjective  “gender identity,” rather than their biological sex, but also:

  • Prevents school officials from asking for documentation of a student’s “gender-related identity” unless they have “credible information” indicating it is false.
  • Allows students to change their “identity” at will, such that they can compete in a girls’ league one semester and a boys’ league the next.
  • Prevents coaches from preemptively moving a boy on a girls’ team to a separate changing area.
  • Encourages coaches to prepare girls for a boy to join their team.
  • Will not tell parents when a “transgender” athlete joins their child’s team.

Lorey concludes:

The continued dominance of [Hernandez] exposes the bigger problem: California’s leaders continue to allow males to invade girls’ sports, erase female athletes and compromise safety.

From track and field to volleyball, males are dominating girls’ sports across the state, and unless something changes, more girls will lose out as more males take over.

Happily, something is changing. More girls, parents and educators are standing up for equality, safety and biological reality in sports — often at great personal cost.

Please join Daily Citizen in praying for the protection and continued boldness in girls defending their rights.

Additional Articles and Resources

California Interscholastic Federation ‘Gender Diversity Toolkit’ Reveals Extent of Radical ‘Transgender’ Participation Policies

Feds Sue California Department of Education, Interscholastic Federations for ‘Illegal Sex Discrimination’

DOJ Lawsuit Describes California Department of Education’s Infuriating Treatment of Girls

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivized to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Gavin Newsom and the Dead-End Politics of the Sexual Revolution

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Court Upholds Arkansas Ban on Harmful ‘Transgender’ Procedures for Children

A federal appellate court upheld an Arkansas law protecting children from experimental and destructive “transgender” medical procedures.

Arkansas was the first state to pass a law shielding minors with sexual identity confusion from harmful puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries used to make them look more like the opposite sex, enacting the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act” (SAFE Act) in 2021.

After several court battles over the law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled in favor of SAFE Act on Tuesday, overturning a lower court’s decision blocking it from taking effect. 

The SAFE Act also prohibits public funds from going to organizations that provide these procedures for minors, bans insurance companies from providing coverage for them, and allows those harmed by these procedures to file lawsuits against providers.

The Arkansas Family Council, a Focus on the Family-allied organization, applauded the decision from the 8th Circuit. In a press release, Family Council President Jerry Cox stated:

“This is amazing news. The SAFE Act is a good law that protects children from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries. It has been blocked in court for the past four years.”

“Now the State of Arkansas can finally enforce this good law protecting children. That’s something to celebrate.”

Cox explained that other countries have found that such medical interventions don’t work and are harmful, saying, “Over the past four years, public health experts in the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, Finland and other nations have found that science simply does not support performing these procedures on kids.”

The family policy council president added,

The SAFE Act is common sense legislation that protects children. That’s why the Arkansas Legislature voted overwhelmingly to pass it in 2021. That’s why more than half the states in America have passed similar laws since then. And that’s why the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar law in Tennessee earlier this year. Most people agree it is not right to perform [such] procedures on kids.

Shortly after the SAFE Act was passed, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the state to allow disfiguring, body-damaging transgender procedures to continue. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four families and two doctors.

In 2023, after an eight-day hearing, U.S. District Judge James “Jay” Moody struck down the Act. Judge Moody was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama.

Arkansas’ attorney general and the State Medical Board appealed the decision, and the 8th Circuit ruled in their favor, reversing Judge Moody’s decision and citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a similar law in Tennessee.

The 8th Circuit stated in its opinion:

Arkansas has a “compelling interest” in protecting the physical and psychological health of minors. …

By prohibiting healthcare professionals from referring “any” minors to “any healthcare professional for gender transition procedures,” the Act prohibits the procedures that the state deems unsafe for minors.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin commended the decision, stating in an X post, “I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures.”

Chemical and surgical mutilation of minors through transgender medical procedures are now banned in 25 states.

The Daily Citizen is thankful for the court’s decision to allow Arkansas’ sensible SAFE Act to take effect.

The case is Brandt v. Rutledge.

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

Related Articles and Resources:

ACLU Sues Arkansas Over Law Protecting Gender-Confused Children

Arkansas Can’t Protect Children from Harmful ‘Sex-Change’ Procedures, Court Rules

Arkansas Legislature Overrides Veto to Protect Gender-Confused Children from Experimental ‘Sex Change’ Procedures

Arkansas Passes Bill to Ban Puberty Blockers, Sex-Change Surgeries for Minors

Family Policy Alliance Launches ‘Help Not Harm’ Campaign to ‘Stop Transgender Experiments on Our Children!’

Federal Judge Strikes Down Arkansas Law Protecting Children From Destructive ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions

Judge Blocks Arkansas Law Prohibiting Experimental ‘Gender Transition’ Treatments on Minors

Justice Barrett Crucially Explains Why ‘Transgenderism’ is Not a Special Class

Resource for Parents: “Responding to the Transgender Issue”

Seventeen State Attorneys General Support Arkansas Law Banning Use of Puberty Blockers

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

US Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee Law Protecting Kids From Transgender Mutilation

Image from Shutterstock.

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

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked citizens last week to share their experiences with so-called gender-affirming care.

The inquiry, which gives people 60 days to comment, will help FTC officials determine whether “gender-affirming” medical providers are illegally coercing families and children into purchasing dangerous and irreversible transgender medical interventions.  

Federal law prohibits businesses from using deception and fraud to sell their products. The FTC is responsible for investigating alleged violations of these consumer protections.

The agency believes doctors, counselors, surgeons and other healthcare providers may be using these tactics — like asking parents whether they “would rather have a dead son or a living daughter?” — to sell “gender-affirming” care.

In last week’s request for public input, the FTC outlined two investigatory goals:

  • To determine whether “gender-affirming care” has harmed consumers — particularly children.
  • To assess whether medical professionals are violating consumer protection laws by omitting the risks or lying about the benefits of “gender-affirming care.”

The public’s input will help the agency investigate:

  • How and when medical professionals recommend transgender medical interventions.
  • What prospective patients are told about the risks and benefits of transgender hormonal and surgical interventions.
  • What, if any, resources doctors and counselors give families to read up on transgender medical interventions.
  • What, if anything, medical professionals disclose about the scientific debate surrounding “gender-affirming care.”
  • What harms and side-effects children experience after undergoing “gender-affirming care,” and whether they knew about the risks ahead of time.

The FTC began exploring these questions last month in a workshop on the dangers of “gender-affirming care” for minors. The seven-hour event featured an impressive panel of speakers, including several detransitioners and their families.

The workshop revealed several troubling similarities in the ways medical professionals treat children with sexual identity confusion.

Each detransitioner began “gender-affirming care,” including opposite-sex hormones and transgender surgery, in their early teens; one received a double mastectomy just a week after she turned thirteen.

All experienced significant, preexisting psychological conditions like anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation before declaring themselves “transgender.” Their doctors assumed these comorbidities stemmed from their “transgenderism” and rarely offered treatments other than “gender-affirming care.”

All had trusted their doctors, but none now felt they’d been prepared for the devastation opposite-sex hormones and transgender surgeries wreaked on their bodies.

“They didn’t tell me that taking cross-sex hormones and undergoing major surgery at 14 years old could leave me with pelvic floor disfunction and urinary incontinence problems I now have to manage as a young adult,” Claire Abernathy testified in a shaking voice. “I’m only 20-years-old.”

The parents of detransitioners described feeling pressured to take their children to transgender clinics by doctors who falsely told them their children would die without “gender-affirming care.” They recalled feeling divided from their children and tiptoeing around doctors who would call child protective services if they weren’t suitably “affirming.”

One father remembered:

[My son’s psychiatrist] did not like that I did not take my son to a [transgender clinic]. I felt I had to walk on eggshells to avoid her recommending child services take my son away from our family. She had already suggested he be put in an inpatient facility.

For FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, the workshop painted a “troubling picture” of a vulnerable population sold an purported miracle cure that left them sick, injured and scarred.

He believes his commission is duty-bound to investigate, regardless of the political or cultural temperature.

“The FTC is the federal government’s guardian against false and deceptive health claims,” he addressed the workshop. “We have brought dozens of enforcement actions against false and misleading health claims, from shyster snake-oil salesmen to power pharmaceutical companies.”

He concluded,

Refusing to investigate these health claims, and the potential consumer harm to parents and children, merely because one political party supports “gender-affirming care” as a matter of ideology would be a political choice.

Americans have until September 26 to contribute to the FTC’s inquiry. If you or a loved one have been affected by “gender-affirming care,” please consider sharing your experience. Click here to learn how to participate.

Additional Articles and Resources

New Paper Details ‘Emerging and Accumulating’ Adverse Effects of ‘Gender Affirming’ Estrogen

FBI Investigates Three Major Hospitals for Mutilating Children

INVESTIGATION: Taxpayers Fund Transgender Experiments on Children

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

New Research: 50-Fold Increase in ‘Gender Dysphoria’ in UK

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

UPDATE: Evidence Reveals DOJ Oversight in Haim Case

England’s NHS Stops Dispensing Puberty Blockers for Children — Not Safe or Effective

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

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

‘Transgender Means Many Different Things’ — And Nothing

Activist Group WPATH Influences Judgement in Case of Prisoner Receiving Trans Surgery

Suicidal or Stable? WPATH Activist’s Contradictory Evaluation Secures Felon Transgender Surgery

Radical and Dangerous Coed Olympic Scam is Over

Reflecting on his misgivings regarding slavery, Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever…”

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee expressed no such angst on Monday, but justice was nevertheless served in their decision to officially exclude sexually confused men from competing in women’s sports.

The overdue announcement was ultimately made in order to comply with President Trump’s executive order barring men from squaring off against women in women’s sports.

Titled, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” the official presidential action (Executive Order 14201) declares:

It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.  It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.

In announcing the eligibility changes, the Olympic Committee said they were “committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport,” and would work to “ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment.”

Sadly, the National Women’s Law Center, which claims to “fight for gender justice,” condemned the change.

“By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” they wrote.

It seems that intense political hatred and bias have blinded many to the greater needs and concerns of female athletes. In fact, the Olympic Committee is finally doing what radical groups like the National Women’s Law Center have refused to do – defend and protect women athletes.

Radicals criticizing opposition to the “trans” circus will often point out just how few sexually confused athletes are actually competing overall. In the 2024 Olympics, there were two known such athletes on Team USA. Of course, that means there were two women robbed of their lifelong dream who were kept off the squad. This was a season they’ll never get back, stolen away from them due to someone else’s delusion, selfishness and a governing body that was derelict in their duty.

Reports of this week’s announcement continue to promulgate an utter lie. Scan the internet and you’ll see countless headlines about the USOC barring “trans women” from competition.

It’s a lie.

There is no such thing as “trans women” – there are only men and women (Genesis 1:27). The only thing the USOPC did was ban men from competing against women.

Following the announcement, a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee told ABC News, “This is a highly complex topic which has been approached by International Federations and National Olympic Committees in different ways depending on their sport and their national legislation and context.”

In actuality, it’s not complex at all. It’s commonsense. It’s only weak and confused male athletes who want to compete against female athletes. It took too long for the USOC to finally act – but at least they acted. The bullying of women athletes must stop.

Image from Getty.

Christian Bookstore Sues Colorado Over Radical ‘Trans’ Law

Last week, a Colorado Springs-based Christian bookstore, Born Again Used Books, filed a lawsuit against Colorado, claiming the state’s radical “trans” law violates their constitutional right to free speech and religious freedom.

This is the third suit filed against the so-called “Kelly Loving Act” since it was passed in May.

Born Again Used Books filed its complaint on July 16, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The case is Born Again Used Books v. Sullivan, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom.

Background

In May, Colorado lawmakers passed a law requiring places of public accommodation, like bookstores, to use people’s “preferred” pronouns and titles, or face discrimination claims.

As previously reported by the Daily Citizen, Focus on the Family spoke out against the law, noting it would threaten free speech by forcing schools and businesses to adopt gender-affirming policies that violate their beliefs.

Focus on the Family President, Jim Daly, spoke out against the bill online. Three analysts from the organization testified against the measure, and in support of parental rights and free speech, at the state capitol.

Complaint

The Christian bookstore argues Colorado’s new law violates their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The owners of Born Again Used Books will sell their books to anyone, but they do not wish to violate their Christian beliefs about human sexuality. The bookstore owners believe God created sex to be immutable and that it is biologically determined.

The bookstore insists it is their constitutional right to recognize biological reality and use titles and pronouns consistent with their faith beliefs when addressing staff and the public.

They want to formalize the policy for the public, explaining their religious beliefs. However, under Colorado’s law it is illegal.

In a press release, ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton, director of the ADF Center for Conscience Initiatives explained, “The government cannot force Americans to say things they do not believe. Compelled speech — particularly on matters of conscience and belief — is unconstitutional.”

Specific Violations

The complaint alleges Colorado’s law violates the constitutional rights of the bookstore owners in three ways.

First, plaintiffs argue it compels them to use “preferred” pronouns and titles, or stay silent, which conflicts with their free speech.

Second, the bookstore alleges the law substantially burdens its sincerely held religious beliefs by preventing it from expressing its religious view on human sexuality and gender.

Third, the complaint argues the law is overly vague and can be used by the state to discriminate against viewpoints it dislikes.

Lastly, plaintiffs allege it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it is not narrowly tailored to a legitimate government interest.

The legal question before the court is whether a state can compel individuals or businesses to use language that affirms a view of gender identity they reject on moral or religious grounds.

ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton further explained the store’s position:

As the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, the government has no business trying to strip traditional views about sex and gender from the marketplace of ideas. Nor can the state compel Coloradans to speak in ways that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. Born Again Used Books shouldn’t have to continually choose between violating the law and speaking consistent with its Christian beliefs.

Request for Relief

The bookstore is seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction to keep the state from enforcing the law against them, in addition to a declaratory judgment on the merits of the case finding the law, as applied to the bookstore, to be unconstitutional.

Impact

This case is not just about whether a bookstore is forced to use “preferred” pronouns and titles. Rather, it’s about whether Americans have the right to speak according to their conscience.

For many families concerned about government overreach into religious beliefs, especially in education, the outcome of this case could either affirm their rights or threaten a new era of state-mandated ideology.

Daily Citizen will continue covering this story.

Related Articles and Resources

Oppose Colorado’s Radical Abortion and ‘Transgender Rights’ Legislation

Focus on the Family Testifies Against Nightmare Bill, Colorado’s Radical ‘Trans’ Legislation Advances

Colorado Governor Signs Extreme Act: ‘Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals’

Parents’ Rights Groups Sue Colorado Over Radical Trans Law

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech

Image credit: ADF