California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom sparked controversy last week by breaking from his party’s stance on transgender women in sports, but his pro-transgender legislative record suggests his comments were “calculated” to appear more moderate for a potential 2028 presidential bid, according to a prominent parental rights activist.
“This is all very calculated on his part to sort of pave the way for his presidential run,” Julie Hamill, a California attorney and Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District trustee, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“He obviously wants to be president, and if you want to be president, you have to convince the majority of the country that you’re a moderate,” said Hamill, who previously worked as a law clerk in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism.
While protections for transgender athletes were signed under previous Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013, Newsom has carried that torch since taking office in 2019 and passed several pieces of legislation codifying certain protections for transgender people and procedures in the state.
“And he’s going to try to sell himself to Democrats across the country in less liberal states that he is someone who can lead their party, and he’s someone who’s moderate, and he’s going to hope that people like me and people who are frustrated in California aren’t going to get our facts out about how he has governed this state,” Hamill said.
In 2020, Newsom signed legislation allowing transgender prison inmates to be housed in facilities that align with their gender identity, instead of their biological sex. The law also requires inmates to be addressed by their preferred pronouns and searches conducted by individuals matching the inmates’ gender identity.
In September 2022, California became the first state to declare itself a sanctuary for transgender youth, offering legal protections to out-of-state minors seeking surgical and hormonal treatments.
After launching several lawsuits against California school districts who were pushing back against notification policies that hid students’ gender identities from parents, Newsom signed a law last year prohibiting school staff from being mandated to inform parents about a student’s transgender status.
“The rates of suicide for kids who identify as trans are very high, and they get higher after procedures are done,” Hamill said of the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act.
“So, you know, his claim to care about these kids is absolute bulls—,” she said. “You cannot conceal information, critical information about what a child is going through at school from that child’s parents.”
In a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education, Hamill is representing fifth-grade girls who “are being told that they have to accept a room assignment on their overnight science camp with someone who identifies as female but may not actually be female.” She said Newsom “has the ability as the leader of the party in California to push to repeal or amend” these laws.
“And if he doesn’t do that, what’s going to happen is these schools that are the subject of my Title IX complaint are going to lose their federal funding,” she said. “And then when that happens, we’re going to see Newsom and the Democrats blame the evil Republicans for depriving schools of federal funding.”
Newsom told conservative activist and TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk in the debut episode of his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” that he agrees biological males in sports is “deeply unfair” last week. His comments set off outrage among his LGBTQ supporters and progressive flank.
Kirk asked Newsom, “You, as the governor, should step out and say no. Would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports?”
“Well, I think it’s an issue of fairness,” Newsom replied. “I completely agree with you on that. It’s deeply unfair.”
Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in February, which said transgender athletes in women’s sports is “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls.” The order requires institutions receiving federal funding to abide by Title IX and follow the definitions of biological sex.
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A day later the NCAA, which oversees college sports, instituted a ban. And more than two dozen states now prevent transgender athletes from school sports.
Newsom noted he has four children, including two daughters, and highlighted that both he and his wife played college-level sports.
“I revere sports, so the issue of fairness is completely legit,” Newsom said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Newsom’s office for comment.
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