West
California Dem compares 'Save Girls Sports' law to Nazi Germany, as two trans athlete ban bills fail to pass
The California state legislature failed to pass two separate bills aimed at protecting girls sports from trans inclusion on Tuesday. During debate for one of the bills, a Democratic state lawmaker compared the proposals to practices employed by Nazi Germany in the holocaust.
California assembly member Rick Chavez Zbur made the comparison while arguing against the first bill, AB 89.
“This is really reminiscent to me of what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. We are moving towards autocracy in this country. In Nazi Germany, transgender people were persecuted, barred from public life,” Zbur said.
Zbur was then interrupted by mediators who protested his comparison and argued it was out of order. But Zbur continued his analogy.
“This is about this, this is about this bill,” Zbur argued. “They were barred from public life. They were detransitioned. They were imprisoned and killed in concentration camps. And the way it started was the same kind of things that are happening in this country by the Trump administration.”
California assembly member Rick Chavez Zbur made the comparison while arguing against the first bill, AB 89. (Getty Images)
California Republican assembly member Kate Sanchez, who proposed AB 89, said she heard audible gasps in the assembly chamber during Zbur’s argument, and that one attendee had to excuse herself from the room.
“There was a lot of gasps and shock,” Sanchez told Fox News Digital.
“It was very tone-deaf. We had a mother who had been in the holocaust itself, so she had to leave the committee hearing because it was so offensive to hear… she stood up and left because she was just so uncomfortable with the situation.”
Multiple Democrat residents, including a member of the LGBTQ community, appeared on the assembly floor Tuesday to advocate in support of the bill.
But AB 89 was ultimately struck down by the Democratic majority. However, it will be allowed for reconsideration at a later date.
“I am just so disgusted that my Democrat colleagues were unable to stand for the protection of women and girls,” Sanchez said. “Not only are they ignoring the will of the people… they’re ignoring the everyday mom, dad, girl in sports. They are ignoring their wants.
Democrat assembly member Avalino Valencia was absent from Tuesday’s vote. Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas inserted himself in the committee to vote in Valencia’s absence. Valencia’s office has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Just moments after Democrats struck down Sanchez’s bill, the committee voted on AB 844, which would also ban trans athletes from girls sports and was proposed by California Republican assembly member Bill Essayli. Debate for Essayli’s bill featured testimony from conservative activist and filmmaker Matt Walsh.
NEWSOM’S ‘UNFAIR’ REMARK ON GIRLS’ SPORTS BELIES RECORD AS GOVERNOR: ‘ABSOLUTE BULLS—‘
And like Sanchez’s bill, Essayli’s was also struck down by the Democrat majority. Essayli told Fox News Digital that he believes the Democrat’s resistance to the two bills was intended to send a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom prompted backlash from those in his own party with comments on his podcast last month, expressing his belief that trans athletes in girls sports was “deeply unfair,” but defended allowing it anyway.
“I think there really is a civil war here brewing within the Democrat Party on how to address these issues. You have the governor going in one direction, and I think what you saw today with the leadership in the legislature, which tends to be even more radical and progressive than the governor, taking a completely different approach. And I think they wanted to send a message to the governor that they’re not budging on this issue,” Essayli said.
“Today they wanted to send a message to their progressive, extremist base that they’re not abandoning them.”
The Democratic majority prevented both bills from passing just days after President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a formal warning to Newsom and the rest of the state, suggesting federal funding may be cut to the state if it continues to enable trans inclusion in girls sports.
MAINE UNIVERSITIES AGREE TO KEEP TRANSGENDER ATHLETES OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS AFTER TRUMP ADMIN PAUSES FUNDING
“Allowing participation in sex-separated activities based on ‘gender identity’ places schools at risk of Title IX violations and loss of federal funding. As Governor, you have a duty to inform California school districts of this risk,” McMahon wrote in the letter.
“As Secretary of Education, I am officially asking you to inform this Department whether you will remind schools in California to comply with federal law by protecting sex-separated spaces and activities. I am also officially asking you to publicly assure parents that California teachers will not facilitate the fantasy of ‘gender transitions’ for their children.”
The Democratic majority prevented both bills from passing just days after President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a formal warning to Newsom and the rest of the state, suggesting federal funding may be cut to the state if it continues to enable trans inclusion in girls sports. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The state’s high school sports association, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), is currently under federal investigation for potential Title IX violations after several controversial incidents involving trans athletes occurred over the last year.
The CIF was one of the first state athletic associations to announce it would continue allowing trans athletes to compete with girls after Trump signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order on Feb. 5. The CIF stated an 11-year-old state law, AB 1266, which has been in effect since 2014 and gives trans athletes the right to participate in the gender category based on gender identity and not birth sex, for its non-compliance.
Both Sanchez and Essayli told Fox News Digital they expect the Trump administration to amplify its pressure on the state and potentially cut funding in order to enforce the executive order after their bills failed to pass Tuesday.
“I think a lot will come down the pipe over the next week or so,” Sanchez said. “There will be a lot of development from what I’ve been told.”
Essayli envisions a situation playing out in California similar to the one that has been playing out in Maine over the last month, as a public feud between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills has resulted in a hostile back-and-forth between the state and federal agencies over the issue of trans inclusion.
“None of us really went in thinking the Democrats in the legislature were going to change their position on this today, but what we wanted to do is make a clear record, make our arguments and show the world where they stand, where the Democrats stand on this, expose their position on this,” Essayli said. “And I think we accomplished that.”
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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – SEPTEMBER 21: Voi Tunuufi #52 of the Washington Huskies gestures during the third quarter of the game against the Northwestern Wildcats at Husky Stadium on September 21, 2024 in Seattle, Washington. The Huskies defeated the Wild (Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
Former University of Washington defensive lineman Voi Tunuufi has died at the age of 23, the school announced on Monday night.
“Our hearts are with the Tunuufi family, his loved ones, and every brother who wore the W beside him. Forever in The Pack,” the school posted in an announcement on Twitter.
According to Andy Yamashita of The Seattle Times, Tunuufi’s sister, Sanita, said that he died in a car accident.
Tunuufi appeared in 52 games for the Huskies over four seasons from 2021-24, which included Washington’s run to the National Championship against Michigan in 2023. Tunuufi had 86 total tackles with 12.5 sacks, a forced fumble and two passes defended during his career.
The Source: Information in this story came from the University of Washington and The Seattle Times.
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When the University of Wyoming’s 25,000-seat football stadium is exceeds the population of all but four cities in the state.
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Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images
At the anti-abortion March for Life rally in D.C. last year, Vice President J.D. Vance had a clear message.
“So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said to a cheering crowd.
As birth rates fall in the U.S., prominent conservatives such as Vance are encouraging Americans to have more children. They say that’s crucial to maintaining the nation’s workforce, so there will be enough caregivers for an aging population.
Now, those arguments are being cited to pass new state-level restrictions on abortion, including in Wyoming, which recently passed a law to outlaw abortions once there’s a “detectable fetal heartbeat.”
According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it is “clinically inaccurate” to describe what can be heard via an ultrasound during very early pregnancy as a heartbeat. Cardiac cells in an embryo may exhibit electrical activity that is detectable, but there are no cardiac valves that could generate the sound that people know as a heartbeat.
The Wyoming law — which has now been temporarily blocked in court — prohibits abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, which is generally around the sixth week of pregnancy.
“We’re sending a message that children are important and that they’re the future,” said Republican state lawmaker and former nurse Evie Brennan.
“Without an up and coming population that grows up here that wants to stay here, then we just become a stagnant or an aging slash dying state,” she added.
Suzanne Bell, a demographer at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Wyoming’s tactic is unlikely to substantially grow its population.
“Imposing a ban on abortion is not going to transform the trajectory of a state’s fertility pattern,” Bell said.
She added that abortion bans can lead to a short-term population bump. Wyoming’s neighbor, Idaho, saw one after it instituted one of America’s strictest abortion bans in 2023.
“What that works out to in absolute terms is about 240 excess births,” Bell said.
But at the same time, researchers found Idaho was hemorrhaging healthcare workers. It now has 35% fewer OB-GYNs than before their law went into effect.
In Wyoming, population loss has been an issue for decades. Giving a tour to prospective students at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Claire Lane said there’s not a lot of industry here.
“ I feel like a lot of students don’t see a ton of opportunities maybe necessarily in their fields to work here in Wyoming,” said Lane, a college senior with purple-tipped hair.
She said she plans to stick around for graduate school in speech language pathology, but she’ll probably leave the state to find work.
“We do have a super small population, so a lot of students know that they might need to go somewhere else to find a job,” Lane said.
A 2024 Harvard Kennedy School working paper said by the time Wyomingites reach their thirties, nearly two thirds have left — one of the highest rates in the country. It said a lot of young people are leaving for cities, of which Wyoming has few.
“With bigger areas, there comes more unique people and more creative people,” said Aidan Freeman, a second-year music student at the University of Wyoming.
Sitting in the student union building, Freeman said he and his partner hope to move to Fort Collins, Colorado soon.
“Wyoming is very traditionalist in some ways,” Freeman said. “It is kind of a bubble.”
Researchers from Harvard recommended Wyoming invest in its rural areas, making them more economically diverse and investing in a supply of housing for young people.
Brennan said she knows the partial abortion ban, which she helped pass, is not the complete answer to growing Wyoming’s population. She said the pro-life movement also needs to start focusing on more long-term solutions.
“We have to send the message that not only are you important in utero, but you’re also important on day one when you’re born, like outside of utero,” Brennan said. “And I don’t know that the legislature has had good, robust conversations on what that looks like.”
Wyoming Republic state Sen. Evie Brennan
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Dreaming Hollow Photography/Dreaming Hollow Photography
Brennan said she hopes the legislature will evaluate the effects of the six-week abortion ban, but that depends on whether courts let it stand.
Pro-abortion rights groups challenged it soon after it passed. On April 24, a federal district court judge temporarily blocked the law, while litigation continues. That means abortion is once again legal in the state after six weeks.
Proceedings will continue at the district court level, and the judge will weigh in on the constitutionality of the law. That decision could then be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Earlier this year, that court struck down two more sweeping abortion bans in the state.
A Pacific Heights mansion that was once the priciest listing in San Francisco has traded hands as the already-hot spring market continues getting hotter.
The six-bedroom home at 2830 Pacific Avenue was initially listed in 2023 for $35 million before dropping to $27.5 million last spring and ultimately selling last week at that price, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
The seller was listed in records as Helena Trust, an entity tied to Hennessey Capital President Rajiv Ghatalia. Ghatalia bought the property in 2010 for nearly $8.4 million. The buyer is an LLC dubbed Almost Heaven, linked in state business records to the address of San Francisco-based financial services firm Andersen, though the buyer’s identity is unknown. Ghatalia and his wife are downsizing after their children moved out, according to the Business Times.
The Georgian Colonial home was built in 1910 and spans roughly 9,400 square feet. A 2012 renovation brought the home into the 21st century with a seismic retrofit, updated systems and a 1,500-bottle wine cellar. The home also has one of the first residential elevators in the city.
The sale arrives as fresh trophy listings continue to hit the market this spring. Homes priced above $5 million are seeing increased competition, driven in part by tech wealth and limited inventory in the city, which industry observers view as a symptom of the artificial intelligence boom as deep-pocketed buyers in the tech industry move into town. That surge in demand at the higher end of the market has led to a so-called mansion shortage, especially in tony neighborhoods like Pacific Heights.
Late last month, a Russian Hill mansion tied to Gap’s founding family hit the market for the first time. That home at 888 Francisco Street is listed for nearly $17.3 million. Also last month, a Pacific Heights property sold for $56 million, representing the priciest sale in the city so far this year, while another Pac Heights home at 2602 Jackson Street hit the market for $22.5 million. It’s not just single-family homes, either. A penthouse sold last month for more than $10 million, the Business Times reported.
— Chris Malone Méndez
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