Dan Slavin, a California construction contractor, raised his daughter Caitlin this year through an experience no one in his family expected.
Over the summer, Martin Luther King High School, where Caitlin competes in cross country, receives word that a new transfer student will be joining Caitlin's team. The student was a transgender athlete.
Slavin said she and other parents immediately contacted the school about the incident.
“We went there out of concern for safety and locker room issues,” Slavin he told FOX News Digital. “They were very tight-lipped and quiet. They said they understood our concerns and were working to keep our children safe, but not by much. They just said… I just sat there.”
Slavin, a California native who competed in cross country, track and basketball in high school, wanted her daughter to play competitive sports because of the lessons it taught her about work ethic and teamwork. I did.
But the idea of Caitlin having to share a locker room or field with a biological male made him “concerned.”
California law protects the participation of transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports and requires public schools to follow these protections.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has staunchly defended these policies during his time in office, vetoing a bill that would have required schools to notify players and their families if a transgender player was on their team. .
Newsom signed nine LGBTQ+ rights bills into law in a matter of days in 2023, and this year will ban teachers from notifying students and parents of transgender students. Signed the “Supporting the Future of Academics and Educators Act'' (Security Act). biological sex.
“I would love to sit down and have lunch and talk about this and see what happens,” Slavin said. “I understand that he probably wants everyone to feel included, but I'm just saying you're missing out on how many people it's actually impacting and hurting. Sho.”
Slavin, his daughter, and the other girls on the team learned how these laws affect female athletes after a transgender player transferred to their school. Caitlin's teammate and co-captain Taylor lost his spot on the national team this season.
“It was tough for her. She was there with her teammates and they were in tears,” Slavin said. “She is trying to balance how to continue to love everyone and how to raise awareness.
“There's not a hateful bone in her little body.”
So Caitlin, Taylor, and some of their other teammates decided to take a stand, like so many other young female athletes across the country this year. They did that by creating custom T-shirts that read “Save Girls Sports.”
But when the girls showed up at the high school wearing the shirts, administrators reprimanded them by comparing the shirts to swastikas, according to a lawsuit filed by the families of the two girls against the school.
“I didn’t even know how to figure it out right away,” Slavin said. “I had no words. I still haven't fully digested it to this day. It's unfathomable. It's strange. It's strange. There must have been a better illustration in place of that one.”
Julian Fleischer, the attorney representing Caitlin and Taylor in the lawsuit, told Fox News Digital that the school administrators' comments were “incredibly dangerous.”
“When you have an adult who compares the message “Save Women's Sports,'' which promotes equality, fairness, and common sense, to an adult who compares that message to a swastika representing the genocide of millions of Jews, it is truly speechless. No. I don't know how you're going to react to that,'' Fleischer said.
The administration's comparison and subsequent lawsuit led other students to become involved.
Hundreds of students at Martin Luther King High School began wearing the T-shirts every Wednesday.
Schools responded by enacting dress codes, which resulted in many students being detained. But that didn't stop them. The students continued to wear the shirts every week.
The school recently stopped enforcing a dress code on shirts.
Slavin saw about 400 students wearing the shoes at Martin Luther King High School, sources told Fox News, and surrounding schools such as Arlington High School, Riverside Technical High School and He said he saw students wearing them at Romona High School.
For Slavin, who has watched his daughter win titles and MVP awards during her youth sports career, this movement is his proudest moment as an athlete's father. However, it also faced backlash from transgender inclusion activists on social media.
“This message contradicts itself as an attack on people, but that's not the point at all. We want everyone to feel loved and we want everyone to feel included. But some people don't understand the common sense aspects of it,” Slavin said.
But Slavin said that doesn't stop him and his family from continuing to work on the issue.
Riverside Unified School District is scheduled to hold a board meeting next Thursday, and parents are expected to attend and voice their opposition to policies that have allowed transgender participation in girls' sports.
Slavin also said that if the issue remains unresolved, the family could use it as another platform for political activity in the 2026 California gubernatorial election.
“If nothing changes over the next few years, the next election should absolutely include that,” he said.
“I would like to see policy change,” Slavin added. “I keep saying this system is broken and it does more harm than good. And I want people to understand that and acknowledge that sometimes we make mistakes. It's okay to admit that, but we need to make changes and move on from our mistakes.”
