HOUSTON, United States

The Trump administration sued the state of California on Wednesday for alleged Title IX violations regarding the banning of transgender student athletes from participating in girls' school sports teams, according to media outlets.

The US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which oversees high school sports in that state, over what it called a pattern of "illegal sex discrimination against female student athletes."

Both state agencies have declined to bar transgender students from competing in sports outside their biological sex, despite President Donald Trump's threat to withhold "large-scale federal funding" from the state.

Government investigations revealed that both agencies were not complying with Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools that the president said prohibits transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Trump's executive order signed in February said the US opposes "male competitive participation in women’s sports" and that allowing transgender student athletes to compete in female sports violates Title IX’s promise of equal athletic opportunity.

California’s Department of Education and the CIF had a July 7 deadline to sign a proposed resolution that would have required state public schools to kick transgender athletes off girls’ sports teams and strip them of their athletic titles and records.

On Monday, both agencies declined to sign the agreement, saying that they did not believe they violated any federal laws, which prompted Wednesday's lawsuit.

A 2013 state law signed by former California Governor Jerry Brown explicitly protects the rights of transgender students to compete on teams that match their gender identity.

A spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state Education Department and the CIF are following existing state law.

"NO COURT HAS ADOPTED THE INTERPRETATION OF TITLE IX ADVANCED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, AND NEITHER the Governor, nor THEY, get to wave a magic wand and override it –– unlike Donald Trump, California follows the law," Elana Ross said in an email to The Hill newspaper.

US Education Secretary Linda McMahon called Newsom’s remarks "empty political grandstanding."

US Attorney General Pam Bondi chastised Newsom while announcing the lawsuit.

"The Governor of California has previously admitted that it is ‘deeply unfair’ to force women and girls to compete with men and boys in competitive sports," said Bondi. "Not only is it ‘deeply unfair,’ it is also illegal under federal law."