Editorial: Most CA gov candidates fall short on trans issues

The 2026 California governor’s race so far lacks a clear frontrunner – and, with the exceptions of state schools chief Tony Thurmond, who’s mired in the low single digits, and Congressmember Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), who has vaulted to a top position, many candidates have not offered full-throated support for the transgender community. We wish there was a credible LGBTQ candidate, but that, too, withered on the vine when lesbian former legislative leader Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) suspended her campaign in early October two weeks after an editorial board meeting with us.

In that meeting, Atkins was unequivocal in her support for trans youth. Atkins said she was disappointed in Governor Gavin Newsom’s comments to the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, when he said it was a matter of fairness regarding trans girls and women playing on female sports teams. “I played with boys,” Atkins said of her childhood athletic endeavors. “I grew up pretty poor and sports gave me confidence.” She also decried the political weaponization that the trans athlete issue has become, even as California law requires public schools to allow trans kids to participate on teams that align with their gender identity.

But now that Atkins has exited the race, it will be up to one of the other 10 major candidates to reach out to the LGBTQ community. The two leading Republicans, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, a former adviser to former United Kingdom prime minister David Cameron, do not support trans kids. That leaves the eight Democrats.

We want to see the Democratic gubernatorial candidates articulate policies that can dial down the rhetoric that has consumed this issue. We’re tired of the right constantly referring to trans girls and women as “biological men.” Most kids just want to play sports, whether they are trans or not. Today’s political climate, helped along by President Donald Trump and his transphobic executive orders, leaves no space for rational discussion.

The views of most of the Democratic candidates were shared in recent CBS News interviews conducted by Julie Watts in Sacramento. She’s the reporter whom candidate Katie Porter disparaged in a viral video clip several weeks ago. While Porter, a former congressmember, was considered the frontrunner, she’s now polling at 11%, two points behind Swalwell, who recently jumped into the race.

Watts’ question about where candidates stand on transgender athletes participating in school sports revealed some interesting answers. Hilton, for example, wants to overturn California’s law. Bianco went full MAGA: "Boys should not be competing against girls. As a coach, I absolutely know that boys have no place in girls' sports.”

Democratic candidate Ian Calderon, a former assemblymember from Southern California, tried to have it both ways. He said he believes there is an athletic advantage with transgender girl athletes playing in girls' sports and said, "I don't support it."

However, he stressed that his views could shift. "I'm always willing to take in more information and have my opinion evolve over time, but as I stand now and what I've seen now, I do believe that there's an advantage," Calderon told Watts.

Porter said that the California Interscholastic Federation should make decisions “at every level of sports competition.” The federation oversees high school sports competitions and, in May, developed a compromise policy that allowed more cisgender girls to participate in track and field state championships, even if they had lost to trans competitors at the qualifying competitions.

Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat and former Los Angeles mayor, told Watts he made a distinction based on puberty. "Men who have gone through puberty and are now transgender women, should they play other women? No, I don't believe they should," he said. He added that he believes in gender-affirming care, but not trans athletes.

According to the interviews, Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who served as health and human services secretary in the Biden administration, was seemingly unaware of the state law on the matter, even though he was California’s attorney general after the law was in effect. "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that you are entitled to play a sport," he said. Once Watts read the law to him, Becerra said, "I'm not interested as governor in having someone be bullied or someone discriminated because of who they are, simply for that reason. And if the rules allow an individual to play in that sport, those are the rules and you should abide by them."

When Becerra was AG, he spoke at Equality California events in support of the LGBTQ community. At HHS, a trans woman, Admiral Rachel Levine, served as his number two. His seemingly lack of knowledge on trans issues is surprising, and disappointing.

Thurmond was in full support. "We are a state that can accept diversity, and we will make sure that we follow the law and protect the rights of transgender athletes to participate and to be able to do so safely," he told Watts. Thurmond got kicked out of a school board meeting in Chino Valley two years ago for criticizing a proposed district policy that would forcibly out trans students to their parents.

Democratic former state controller Betty Yee, who has long been a champion of the LGBTQ community, told Watts that she is still learning about the trans sports issue, which was also a surprise.

"This is something I'm going to say I'm still learning about, and where I've been getting a lot of my information or becoming aware of the issue more is from parents of transgender children who are in high school and college," she said.

Yee then said in the interview that there are ways transgender athletes could be integrated into school sports, "like developing a separate league," but she stressed that she would never want to "discourage their participation in athletics."

Watts’ interviews took place before Swalwell entered the race. In Congress, he was listed as not voting on the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025. (The anti-trans measure passed.) The online news site LGBTQ Nation reported that Swalwell is staunchly opposed to banning trans student-athletes from school sports.

Democrat Tom Steyer is another recent entrant in the governor’s race. He says that he supports the current state law, LGBTQ Nation noted.

Overall, there is room for improvement in the Democratic field. We’ll be watching to see what develops in the new year. However, amid the bleak federal landscape for transgender people, those who want to lead the largest state in the country, and the world’s fourth largest economy, need to come up with clear policies that respect trans people, including student-athletes.