The Trump administration is ramping up its battle with California over the state’s insistence on letting transgender athletes compete on sports teams that do not match their biological sex. 

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced a lawsuit to “enforce Title IX” regulations and “protect California female student athletes from unfair competition and reckless endangerment by male participation on female high-school sports teams.”

Earlier this week, the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation flatly rejected a proposed agreement from the federal Department of Education to resolve the Trump administration’s finding that the state was in violation of Title IX. The rejection prompted a warning from the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, that further action would be coming.

The DOJ’s lawsuit alleges that California’s policies “eviscerate equal athletic opportunities for girls” and create “a hostile educational environment that denies girls educational opportunities.”

Attorney General Bondi said, “The Governor of California has previously admitted that it is ‘deeply unfair’ to force women and girls to compete with men and boys in competitive sports.”

“But not only is it ‘deeply unfair,’ it is also illegal under federal law. This Department of Justice will continue its fight to protect equal opportunities for women and girls in sports,” she added.

Ms. Bondi’s comment refers to an episode of Governor Newsom’s podcast from March when he said he believes it is “deeply unfair” to have transgender athletes competing in female sports. 

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to force California to prohibit transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports and “implement a monitoring and enforcement system to ensure compliance with Title IX’s requirement of equal athletic opportunity.” The suit also seeks to force California to “compensate female athletes who have been denied equal athletic opportunities.”

The California Interscholastic Federation did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. The California Department of Education said it does not comment on pending litigation. 

Last month, the Department of Education gave the CIF and the CDE 10 days to agree to ban transgender athletes from sports teams that do not match their biological sex, issue personalized apology letters to female athletes who lost out on awards to transgender athletes, and to “adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female.’”

Last week, the University of Pennsylvania agreed to a deal to resolve a civil rights case, which included terms similar to the ones in the deal proposed to California.