Lawsuit filed over transgender athletics policies at Riverside school district

Emotions ran high at a Riverside Unified School Board Meeting in a culture war over girl's sports. 

"What the school district is doing here is they're treating trans athletes with privileges that are not being afforded to the girls on the team," Republican state Assemblyman Bill Essayli said. 

Essayli asked the superintendent to step down following a controversy surrounding the district's transgender athletics policies. Other community members said they stood behind her. 

This heated meeting happened after two students at Martin Luther King High School were named in a recent lawsuit. The legal action claims they unfairly lost their positions on the cross-country team to a transgender student. Their custom T-shirts reading "Save Girls Sports" sparked further controversy on campus. 

Nobody should be bullied like that. It doesn't feel okay," one community member said. "We don't need to be having this conversation. They're just kids let them live their lives."

However, people like Travis Geiger disagreed. 

"They're out there just trying to play sports they've grown up loving and then just being shunned and turned away because biological male wants to compete with them."

There were so many people who showed up to speak before the board on both sides of the issue that there were multiple overflow rooms and a swarm of people outside waiting their turn to get in. 

"We are parents that care for our children and we are losing our constitutional right," one parent said during the meeting. 

KCAL News requested a comment from the district but did not immediately receive a response.