National lawsuits over Trump's executive orders impacting trans students, reproductive health involve Central Coast plaintiffs
The White House invited Atascadero Unified School District board member Rebekah Koznek to an executive order signing ceremony on March 31 because she's named in a 2024 complaint filed by Moms for Liberty and Young America's Foundation to stop changes to Title IX ordered by President Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump's order was aimed at trans student athletes and Biden's Title IX changes.
"This was specifically for moms and their daughters who play sports to attend," Koznek said via email. "There were also other organizations there who have been speaking out against this, along with female athletes who have been directly affected by CIF [California Interscholastic Federation] and colleges who have rules in conflict with the current [executive order]."
The Biden administration took steps to expand Title IX—the 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs that enjoy federal financial assistance—to define "sex" as a person's self-assessed gender identity.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, he's issued executive orders against trans people like "keeping men out of women's sports" and "defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government."
Koznek received her invitation from the administration in February.
"Today is a historic day as I get to represent parents across the nation witness, in person, President Trump sign an executive order protecting women and girls from boys competing in their sports," Koznek wrote in a Feb. 5 Facebook caption accompanying an image of her White House invitation card. "This is a victory for fairness, common sense, and the future of women's athletics."
The vice chair of the San Luis Obispo County Moms for Liberty chapter appears in the lawsuit as an example of a Moms for Liberty member whose children are enrolled in schools that receive federal funding and are subject to Title IX regulations.
The complaint alleged that a transgender student using the girl's locker room in the 2023-24 school year "twerked in the faces" of other girls and made them feel uncomfortable. It also noted that Koznek's daughter—referred to by the initials E.K.—is on the autism spectrum and has speech and developmental limitations.
"As a result of E.K.'s disabilities, the presence of a biological male sharing a girls' bathroom or locker room with E.K. would create great confusion for E.K.," the complaint said. "E.K. is unable to process such a situation and is unable to modify her use of pronouns to conform to the requirement of the Final Rule."
The "Final Rule" refers to the investigation conducted by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights to address complaints of sex discrimination and discrimination based on gender identity.
Koznek told New Times she only received positive feedback on her visit to Washington, D.C. She didn't respond to questions on the lawsuit and the alleged locker room incident.
Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming; Female Athletes United; and a mom on behalf of her minor joined Moms for Liberty in the lawsuit against the Department of Education, former Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, the Department of Justice, and former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.