U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the former professional wrestling magnate, on Wednesday morning, said California could lose federal funding if it refuses to comply with new Title IX enforcement demands targeting transgender student-athletes, escalating the Trump administration’s broad effort to penalize states that allow students to compete based on gender identity.
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In an appearance on Fox & Friends, McMahon said California must “send a letter of apology to all of the female participants in sports,” “return the titles that were taken away,” and “make it right” — or risk the loss of K–12 education funding. “Talk is cheap,” McMahon said of Gov. Gavin Newsom. “We’ve investigated... and found that it was an infraction. Now we are demanding that they take action, or we’ll take action.”
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Her comments came just hours before the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights formally announced its conclusion that the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation are in violation of Title IX, the federal civil rights law barring sex-based discrimination in education. The department claims that California’s policy of allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports constitutes unlawful sex discrimination.
In a press release Wednesday, the department said California must rescind its guidance permitting participation based on gender identity, issue written apologies to cisgender female athletes, restore records and titles “misappropriated by [transgender] athletes,” and adopt binary “biology-based definitions” of sex. If the CDE and CIF do not accept the proposed resolution agreement within 10 days, the department said that the matter will be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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“The state must swiftly come into compliance with Title IX or face the consequences that follow,” McMahon warned in the release. She added that Newsom himself “admitted months ago it was ‘deeply unfair’ to allow men to compete in women’s sports,” referencing the governor’s controversial March podcast interview with far-right activist Charlie Kirk.
That interview drew sharp condemnation from LGBTQ+ advocates, including the Human Rights Campaign, who accused Newsom of legitimizing anti-trans narratives. “It is an issue of fairness,” Newsom said during the debut episode of This Is Gavin Newsom, agreeing with Kirk’s framing of trans girls in school sports. Although his office later attempted to clarify his position, civil rights groups argued that the damage was done.
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Newsom’s office rejected McMahon’s threat. “It wouldn’t be a day ending in ‘Y’ without the Trump Administration threatening to defund California,” Newsom’s director of communications, Izzy Gardon, told The Advocate. “Now, Secretary McMahon is confusing government with her WrestleMania days — dramatic, fake, and completely divorced from reality. This won’t stick.”
According to a state official, the CIF is an independent nonprofit organization, not part of the Newsom administration, and they noted that California is one of 22 states with laws requiring schools to allow students to participate in athletics consistent with their gender identity. The state’s law — AB 1266 — was enacted in 2013 under then-Gov. Jerry Brown. The number of transgender student-athletes in California’s public school system, the official said, is estimated to be in the single digits among 5.8 million students.
Another official in Newsom’s office called the resolution “not a serious legal document, telling The Advocate that it’s a political document designed to intimidate school officials and unlawfully override well-established state laws protecting students.” The staffer said the agreement would force retaliation against transgender students by requiring school officials to comb through more than a decade of athletic records and strip medals, titles, and honors from trans girls, even if those students are no longer enrolled. The proposal, the person added, would mandate misgendering and public shaming by requiring schools to “certify” that no trans girls are participating in girls’ sports and then publicly post that information online.
The Newsom administration also warned that the agreement would create a surveillance-style verification process. Schools would be required to determine the sex of every student-athlete using “long-standing school records,” a phrase the governor’s office said could be used to justify invasive demands for birth certificates or other sensitive documents, effectively turning teachers and administrators into gender-policing authorities.
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Last year, the president of the NCAA told Congress that of the 510,000 student-athletes, fewer than 11 are trans.
McMahon, a former WWE executive and major Trump campaign fundraiser, has led the administration’s renewed push to enforce Title IX in line with the president’s executive order banning transgender participation in women’s sports despite Trump’s moves to eliminate the Education Department. In a separate Fox News interview Wednesday, McMahon said the administration may consider criminal prosecution for school or state officials who defy federal directives. “If the president would like us to look into it, we certainly would,” she said.
The OCR’s enforcement announcement also coincides with what the department is now calling “Title IX Month,” which it claims honors the 53rd anniversary of the landmark law. The Trump administration no longer acknowledges June as Pride Month.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
