LGBTQ students on new school rules: ‘It’s clear our lives aren’t important’

• August 28, 2023

Willow Scharf wanted her senior year of high school to be “normal.” No fear of judgment or attack.

“We are children,” said Scharf, 17. “We deserve a fun high school experience.”

This year is her last at Great Oak High School in Temecula. But rather than spend the year planning for college, prom and graduation nights, Scharf and other LGBTQ students across Southern California are worrying about their local school boards.

Scharf identifies as non-binary and bisexual. Since the 2022 election of a new Temecula Valley Unified school board, Scharf said she has “never felt more unsafe” as a Temecula Valley student. The board tried to block a social studies curriculum that mentioned LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk. It’s now considering a policy requiring school officials to tell parents if their children identify themselves as transgender.

“We’re angry at the school board for thinking they could take advantage of us,” Scharf said. “This is our education – we’re not going to let them censor it because we deserve the best.”

The moves in Temecula Valley Unified are among a growing number of actions by school boards and others that alarm LGBTQ students and their allies:

• Chino Valley Unified and Murrieta Unified have adopted policies requiring parental notification about students not conforming to the gender they were assigned at birth, and the Orange Unified school board is considering adopting the policy in September.

• Earlier this year, Chino Valley Unified prohibited teachers from displaying pride flags in their classrooms. Police had to break up a brawl between protesters and counterprotesters outside a Glendale Unified school board meeting where board members were scheduled to vote on a resolution expressing support for Pride Month.

• And on Tuesday, Aug. 22, parental notification backers were met by LGBTQ supporters as they rallied in Los Angeles, objecting to bills in the California Legislature they see as taking away parental rights, including the right to be notified about their children’s gender expression.

‘An awful climate’

Scharf remembers being called a “monster” at a Temecula City Council meeting. She was 15 at the time.

“The only hate I’d ever faced was from kids who don’t think for themselves yet. But here, there were adults who spoke so horribly to me,” Scharf said.

“I’m not somebody who has hate in their heart,” she added. “I don’t understand how you can hate someone just because you don’t understand what they’re going through.”

Like Scharf, many LGBTQ students and those who support them are returning to school campus environments that have changed in the past year — and not for the better, they say.

“My educator friends are fearful; they know they had better not discuss any of this,” said Mitch Rosen, a family therapist in Temecula. “Educators are told ‘you will not go there.’ … It’s an awful climate.”

Policies requiring school employees to tell parents if their child identifies themselves by a gender other than what they were assigned at birth echo Assembly Bill 1314. The bill, co-sponsored by Assemblymember Bill Essalyi, R-Riverside, died without making it to the Assembly floor for a vote. But local school boards have been trying to pass their own versions ever since.

“These policies are cruel, requiring young people to choose between the anxiety and distress of not being able to be their authentic selves at school and the fear of being outed at home before they are ready or safe to do so,” Gabriel Vidal, associate director for Youth Organizing of California for the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network (formerly the Gay-Straight Alliance Network), wrote in an email.

Concerns about safety

Policies like AB 1314 have been framed as giving parents the information they need to raise their children.

“We have no business affirming anything without the parents’ permission or knowledge,” Chino Valley Unified school board president Sonja Shaw said in June. “We’re not denying anybody anything, or any access to any kind of programs, any kind of sports teams. (The) policy doesn’t deny access. It’s not discriminating them to any kind of access.”

But transgender teens say the policies are dangerous.

If parents don’t know that their child is transgender or gender non-conforming, there’s often good reason for that, according to Max Ibarra, a 17-year-old junior in Chino Valley Unified who uses the pronoun they.

“Being a trans kid that’s not out yet, you can get a feeling about whether or not your family will be supportive of that,” they said. “And how do we do that? We pay attention to the comments that our family members make when other trans people in our lives come out. We see them grab the remote to change the channel when trans people come on.

“Sometimes, people can assess the situation as unsafe,” Ibarra added. “To be able to stay safe, we have to stay in the closet at home. If we get outed, that can lead to abuse at home. There are people who would rather have a dead child than a trans child.”

Rosen, the family therapist in Temecula, says that’s true.

“I’ve had parents who tell their kids ‘you’re dead to me,’ which is a terrible thing to hear as a 13-year-old child,” Rosen said.

He hears from parents who want him to recommend conversion therapy for their LGBTQ children. Rosen says such treatment — which is illegal in California — doesn’t work and is unethical.

“So then the parents say ‘Well, I’m going to get a therapist with their head screwed on straight’ and they hang up. And that’s the kiss of death for those young people,” Rosen said.

‘Our lives aren’t important enough’

According a 2023 survey conducted by the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that works to prevent suicide among LGBTQ young people, only 38% of LGBTQ kids responding to the survey said their home was gender-affirming. Of those surveyed, 41% reported they’d considered suicide in the past year. The rates were even higher among transgender, non-binary and people of color responding to the survey.

According to the same survey, about one in three respondents said their mental health was poor because of policies and legislation targeting the LGBTQ community.

Daniel Mora, 18, left, a former student of the Chino Valley Unified School District, and Max Ibarra, 17, currently enrolled in the district, come together to share their experiences as LGBTQ students in local schools amidst a changing political climate that poses challenges for LGBTQ students, in Chino on Friday, Aug. 11, 2023. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

The school boards “know what they’re doing is dangerous,” Ibarra said. “They’ve had students point it out to them. They’ve had human rights groups point it out to them. They’ve had statistics presented to them multiple times. The message is very clear that what they’re doing is dangerous. And by passing policies like this, it’s very clear that our lives aren’t important enough to them to be worth protecting.”

The new political climate also means less tolerance for school clubs that bring together and provide support for LGBTQ students, according to Vidal with the Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network.

“Clubs continue as best as they can to meet and create supportive and affirming meeting spaces for students during these times,” he said.

‘It’s not about sex’

But not every school district in the region is becoming more restrictive in the treatment of LGBTQ issues.

On Aug. 1, the Corona-Norco Unified school board passed a resolution “recognizing the plight of LGBTQ+ staff and students.”

And the brawl that happened outside a Glendale Unified school board meeting earlier this year is not reflective of what’s happening in district schools, according to Deborah Pasachoff, a mother with GUSD Parents for Public Schools.

“Nothing really has changed,” with district policy or what’s being taught in Glendale classrooms, she said. “Here, we’ve managed to keep our kids relatively safe and insulated from the hatred going on in other districts.”

Pasachoff blames the chaos at the June school board meeting on a social media misinformation campaign accusing the district of Marxist indoctrination, sexually explicit education, and protesting against LGBTQ events, including the school board expressing support for Pride Month.

Pride Month “shouldn’t be controversial,” Pasachoff said.

“It’s not about sex. It’s saying we’re going to respect a large number of Americans and people in our community,” she said.

Gris Soriano has two children enrolled in Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified schools — including a transgender son.

According to Soriano, a member of PFLAG, a national organization that provides support for families with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer, the Yucaipa-Calimesa district has supported her son.

“I’m comforted that the district has guarded my son’s integrity,” Soriano said.

The district has protected her son, she said. They’ve detected and stopped bullying and offered counseling services at school. Although her children’s district is supportive, she said she knows it’s not that way for all LGBTQ children.

“I feel very nervous and worried for these young children,” Soriano said. “We hear a lot of stories where kids don’t have support at home and cutting off that support at school can be isolating.”

‘We all miss out on their gifts’

For many LGBTQ students, the start of the 2023-24 school year means more stresses than just tests and class projects.

Glendale police separate conservative groups and LGBTQ supporters outside Glendale Unified offices on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. (File photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

The current climate “is creating fear, exacerbating anxiety and causing significant worry,” according to Traci Lowenthal, a Redlands-based therapist who specializes in LGTBQ issues.

“To say that our LGBTQIA+ youth are aware of the uptick in hate is an understatement,” she wrote in an email.

The changing climate has LGBTQ students feeling unsafe and isolated, and leads to feelings of self-hatred and shame, according to Lowenthal. Bullies feel emboldened. And all this has consequences for students.

“When kids feel unsafe at school, their capacity to pay attention, retain information and enjoy social engagement is negatively impacted,” Lowenthal wrote. “When young people feel the need to hide the entirety of who they are, we all miss out on their gifts.”

According to Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, hate crimes against the LGBTQ community rose 52% last year in 42 major cities. Hate crimes against gender non-conforming people, including those in drag, rose 47% during the same period and anti-transgender hate crimes rose 28% during the same period. The data is part of a report that was presented Friday, Aug. 25, at the August meeting of the California Commission on the State of Hate.

Some teens dream of leaving behind communities they feel no longer welcome them.

“For many young folks who are queer, particularly queer folks of color, if you want to be your true self, you have to leave Orange County,” said Uyen Hoang, executive director of Viet Rainbow of Orange County.

The organization was founded a decade ago, after a 2013 Tet parade excluded LGBTQ marchers. Today, the Viet Rainbow is once again finding itself unwelcome at events in Orange County, Hoang said.

“I thought it was very supportive here,” said Daniel Mora, 18, who graduated from Chino High in May. “But I was wrong. People would come to board meetings and be open about their ignorance and hate. I thought this was a supportive community, but I was wrong. I’m still really shocked about it.”

This fall, he begins studying political science across the country at Yale.

“I always knew that Chino was a bit more conservative than the entirety of California, but I really thought that people would let other people live their lives,” Mora said. “But it’s very different now; they’re very open about calling you out about something that they don’t like.”

But other LGBTQ young people say they’re not going anywhere.

“I’m planning to make SoCal my lifelong home. The (Chino Valley school board) is not going to silence me,” Ibarra said. “I’m going to stay and make sure that, at all times, there is at least one person who is calling them out for what they’re doing.”

Mora believes the pendulum will swing back the other way, in time.

“I don’t think this is the future for Chino. I think this was just the perfect time for them: A lot of people were mad about masks, a lot of people were mad about the pandemic,” he said. “I know a lot of community members in Chino that don’t agree with (the school board). I know even conservatives and Republicans who think they’re too far right and think that school boards shouldn’t be political.”

Staff writers Monserrat Solis and Allyson Vergara contributed to this story.

More on Southern California LGBTQ students

Growing up gay in the 21st century: Adults, not peers, pose biggest problems
Hesperia Unified settles for $850,000 with teacher who said district retaliated against her for siding with LGBT students
How California students from marginalized groups are working to stop bullying
Southern California school board meetings now political battlegrounds
Here’s what’s in the new Temecula curriculum that concerns some board members
Murrieta Valley school board OKs policy to tell parents if children are transgender
Proposed transgender notification policy at Orange Unified draws divided response from parents, community
Parental rights groups and LGBTQ supporters hold dueling protests in LA

​ Orange County Register 

Who’s behind transgender policies in Southern California schools?

• August 28, 2023

Sidelined in Sacramento, California conservatives went back to school.

They won school board seats last fall and are now working to advance what they see as an agenda that respects parents’ rights.

Key examples are seen in the Chino Valley, Murrieta Valley and Temecula Valley school districts, which, following long, crowded and contentious public meetings, recently passed policies requiring parents to be notified if their child identifies as transgender. The Orange Unified School District board is considering a similar policy.

A look at the policies shows they share a lot of the same language. That’s no coincidence. A coalition of school board members and their allies drew up the policies and is sharing them statewide.

“Being that we knew as parents we needed to join together, it’s kind of what’s happening organically now with school board members,” said Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District board.

“You’re finding your people who are in it for the same reason as you were,” Shaw said. “And I think that’s the most beautiful part.”

Jonathan Zachreson, a conservative school board member in the Northern California city of Roseville, said he has been in contact with Shaw and other Southern California school board members.

“We all talk and work together to do what we can to share what we’ve learned and share resources to better effect change locally,” said Zachreson, who like Shaw was elected in November.

“(It) allows us to adopt similar policies much faster and not to do it in silos and figure things out on our own.”

On a macro level, conservatives hold little political clout in California, where Republicans are a minority in the state legislature, hold no statewide elected office and occupy 12 of the state’s 52 House of Representatives seats.

Last year, the California GOP focused on winning school board seats in the state’s red areas, labeling the effort “Parent Revolt.” In places like southwest Riverside County, conservatives mobilized and helped elect like-minded candidates, including a school board majority in Temecula.

For many of them, the path to the school board started with frustration over their schools’ COVID-19 policies.

“I think this goes back a few years ago, when parents started to come together when the shutdown happened,” Shaw said. “When we each individually started going to our school board meetings, lots of parents formed their own grassroots organizations and advocacies because we knew we had to have a voice.”

She added: “I was a parent before. I had no desire to run for school board. I didn’t even know what a school board was … And there’s a lot of similar parents who took these seats like myself.”

In March, Inland GOP Assemblymember Bill Essayli, who represents part of western Riverside County, sponsored AB 1314, which would have required all California public schools, once they learn a student is transgender, to notify parents. AB 1314 faltered a month later after a Democratic Assembly committee chair refused to give it a hearing.

From left, Chino Valley Unified School District board President Sonja Shaw, Assemblymember Bill Essayli and Riverside Police Department Sgt. Erik Lindgren attend a school safety town hall near Riverside on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (File photo by Sarah Hofmann, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

“(Essayli said) ‘You guys don’t even need my bill. You can forget about what they want to do and the games they want to play,” Shaw said. “You can make your own policy.’”

“It only made sense to try to make up a policy” at Chino Valley.

Shawn Lewis, Essayli’s chief of staff, said via email: “If the Democrat supermajority legislature refuses to hear (AB 1314),” then Essayli “naturally supports and encourages local school boards to adopt that policy locally.”

Shaw said a coalition that includes lawyers, parents and school board members developed the policy that the Chino Valley school enacted in July.

“I have tons of school board members all throughout California reaching out to me and asking me for a copy,” Shaw said.

“And that’s kind of how it just started rolling.”

Murrieta’s school board passed its own transgender notification policy Thursday, Aug. 10. Temecula Valley Unified School District board President Joseph Komrosky attended the Murrieta meeting, and on Wednesday, Aug. 23, his board voted 3-2 to approve its own policy.

Shaw, who has spoken at parents’ rallies in Sacramento, said she met Komrosky, Temecula school board member Jen Wiersma and Murrieta school board member Nick Pardue during a Washington, D.C. trip organized by the California School Boards Association.

Komrosky, Wiersma and Pardue received support and endorsements from the Inland Empire Family PAC and Pastor Tim Thompson, a prominent southwest Riverside County conservative activist.

“We had common ground and we just came together during that meeting and that’s how we developed a relationship,” she said. “So it was kind of cool how that happened.”

Shaw also mentioned her work with the Coalition for Parental Rights, which promotes transgender notification policies. The coalition’s website allows users to download the policy and includes a toolkit for policy supporters to win over the public.

Coalition members include organized conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, the Pacific Justice Institute and the California Policy Center.

Academic observers are skeptical about how grassroots these self-described grassroots partnerships are.

“I think a lot of these individual players and, and people (that have) been elected to school boards are working at the grassroots,” said Bruce Fuller, a sociologist at UC Berkeley’s School of Education.

“(But) I think these folks are not recognizing that they are being driven and manipulated from centrally organized cultural conservatives, that this is not really bubbling up from parents.”

John Rogers, a UCLA education professor who studies conservative activism in public schools, said it’s not as simple as saying: “‘Hey, some parents just became frustrated and increasingly, just as they became more involved, an agenda emerged.’”

“The frustration,” he said, “oftentimes was very much connected to a broader political agenda and oftentimes connected to other forms of political mobilization and other political resources that were supported through state or national actors.”

Rogers added: “You can have some grassroots energy. But that grassroots energy goes much further, the connections are going to be much deeper, the networking is going to be more effective when there’s a lot of resources put in play.”

What’s next for school board conservatives beyond transgender policies?

“There’s not anything specific yet,” Shaw said.

That said, “Sacramento keeps pushing all these crazy bills through the pipeline,” she said. “We’re going to work and look at the legal policy to push through to put safeguards in place from all the crazy things that they’re pushing and show them no, that’s not what our communities want.”

The policies face pushback from the LGBTQ community and others, who fear they harm children whose parents aren’t accepting of their transgenderism. The Temecula school board’s three conservatives are the target of a recall campaign.

“These cultural warriors are in a very small minority,” Fuller said. And while “they have a very loud voice” in conservative-friendly areas like Temecula, “statewide, this is really a fringe movement and I suspect that moderate parents and centrist Democrats are going to perhaps punish Republicans politically who align with these groups,” he said.

Zachreson said he and his fellow conservatives have bigger plans, including a 2024 ballot measure to enact a transgender notification policy for all California schools. A Sacramento press conference on the proposed measure and two related ballot measures is scheduled for Monday afternoon, Aug. 28.

“There are organizations that have kind of had the run of the show unchecked for decades on education in California,” he said. “And so we really need to rein that back in and provide balance.”

Related links

Teachers, students reeling over Chino Valley policy to out transgender children to parents
Murrieta Valley school board OKs policy to tell parents if children are transgender
Temecula school board OKs policy to tell parents if students are transgender
Southern California school board meetings now political battlegrounds
Why conservative Christians want to take over southwest Riverside County school boards
Bill to prevent California school textbook bans is in limbo

​ Orange County Register 

Silencing the media won’t change USA Gymnastics’ culture of abuse

• August 28, 2023

SAN JOSE — Potter Stewart served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 23 years, a constant presence through nearly a quarter-century of landmark case in one of this country’s most transformative eras.

But Stewart will be best remembered for a brief statement he made regarding the Court’s decision on a 1964 pornography case. Obscenity, Stewart said, was hard to define but added, “I know it when I see it.”

The phrase, widely repeated at the time and in the years since, would haunt Stewart for the rest of his life.

“In a way, I regret having said what I said about obscenity — that’s going to be on my tombstone. When I remember all of the other solid words I’ve written,” Stewart said in 1981, four years before his death. “I regret a little bit that if I’ll be remembered at all I’ll be remembered for that particular phrase.”

Among those thousands of solid words from Stewart was this: “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.”

The latter Stewart quote came to mind Sunday afternoon as I sat in the seat I purchased in Section 107, Row 23, Seat 16 at the SAP Center for the USA Gymnastics Championships.

Normally I would be sitting on press row, just as I have through the last seven Olympic Games gymnastics competitions, World Championships, U.S. championships in parts of three decades and NCAA Championships dating back to the early 1990s. I covered 16-year-old Simone Biles’ first U.S. title in Hartford in 2013.

But earlier this month USA Gymnastics unexpectedly denied my credential request to cover Biles record-setting  eighth U.S. all-around title.

When I reached out to USA Gymnastics, assuming the rejection was some kind of mistake, I was told by Jill Geer, USA Gymnastics’ chief marketing and communications officer, “We are over-run with media requests and having to make some tough decisions on credentialing. We can’t accommodate you this year.”

Geer’s explanation didn’t ring true since a number of major American newspapers with long histories of covering the sport chose not to join the media stampede to San Jose. From Section 107, directly behind the media section, there were plenty of empty seats on press row. This isn’t the first time Geer’s attempt at spin hasn’t held up and I’m certain it won’t be the last either.

In fact, the Southern California News Group and our readers are being punished, censored by USA Gymnastics for nearly 20 years of relentless reporting that has repeatedly exposed an organization that continues to place money, branding, and marketing over the safety and well being of the young athletes it has been entrusted to protect.

This reporting predated the Larry Nassar scandal by a dozen years and has continued since USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee reached a $380 million settlement with the survivors of Nassar and other predatory coaches and officials.

Indeed, since the Nassar settlement, SCNG has revealed a series of U.S. Center for SafeSport investigations of two of the sport’s most famous coaches for years of alleged abuse, and we’ve reported USA Gymnastics’ response to them and other probes, reporting that has embarrassed the national governing body’s CEO Li Li Leung and undercut the organization’s claim that it has changed the culture of abuse within American gymnastics that allowed Nassar, former Olympic coaches Don Peters and John Geddert to sexually abuse young girls.

Leung, Geer and USA Gymnastics know they haven’t taken the steps to create real culture change in the sport and don’t want someone in San Jose pointing out their failures and wrecking NBC’s fairytale.

Leung’s idea of change is changing the organization’s logo, which USA Gymnastics did last year, a move, Leung said was, “symbolizing the organizational and cultural transformation we have pursued since 2019.”

In reality, all Leung and Geer did was create a new seal of approval for American gymnastics continued culture of abuse.

“Since that time,” Leung told reporters in San Jose, referring to the logo change, “almost every bit of good news related to the sport of gymnastics – from legend athletes returning to the sport to new corporate partnerships to a new feeling of fun and celebration – is a direct reflection of the work that the entire gymnastics community has done to define and cultivate a new culture that prioritises athletes and their safety, health and wellness.”

The problem is that Leung and USA Gymnastics don’t want to do that heavy lifting that creates true cultural transformation. They just want potential corporate sponsors to think they have. Leung revealed as much in her state-of-the-sport comments last week.

Corporate sponsors like Kellogg’s and Proctor and Gamble dropped USA Gymnastics like it was radioactive in the wake of the Nassar scandal. USA Gymnastics hired Leung, the NBA’s former vice president for global partnerships, to get Corporate America back on board.

Leung’s hiring “was cooked up by a bunch of people from Madison Avenue,” John Manly, an attorney for more than 100 Nassar survivors, said at the time.

“For the business of USA Gymnastics and our mission of supporting athletes, it has manifested itself in a series of new partners joining us,” Leung gushed to reporters in San Jose. “We were so fortunate in the last few years to have long-time partners renew, and since January, USAG has welcomed five brand new partners, including, most recently, Core Hydration, Comcast, and Nike.”

Leung has had a series of tone-deaf moments during her tenure and this was another one.

Nike?

So you’re so serious about changing the culture of a sport that has abused young women for decades that you partner with a company whose track record for treating women is only slightly better than USA Gymnastics?

Nike, the company that offered Olympic champion sprinter Allyson Felix, long one of the most recognizable female athletes sponsored by the Oregon company, detailed in a New York Times piece, a 70 percent pay cut during December 2017 contract negotiations? Felix, who was pregnant at the time, also said Nike failed to put clear guarantees in the contract for maternity protections she had requested.

Nike, the brand that then asked Felix to participate in a female empowerment ad for the company, during the maternity protections negotiations?

The Nike that withheld a quarter of distance runner Kara Goucher’s $325,000 salary because she was pregnant and unable to compete even as the company built a widely popular marketing campaign around the future mom?

“I had worked my butt off for the entirety of my pregnancy while they marketed me as a mother-athlete to consumers, yet they were effectively telling me that none of that work had any value,” Goucher wrote in her recent memoir “The Longest Race.”

The Nike that reportedly for a time paid the legal fees for Alberto Salazar, Goucher’s former coach, who the U.S. Center for SafeSport later ruled had sexually assaulted her?

That Nike?

“I don’t think it rings true at all,” Reshma Block, the Orange County mother of a young gymnast who was repeatedly abused by her coach, said of Leung’s comments in San Jose. “If there’s been change it’s not because of USA Gymnastics. Simone Biles has raised awareness about mental health, but as far as USA Gymnastics changing anything, no.”

Instead, Leung’s tenure has been marked by a series of missteps. Only weeks after being hired, Leung, who competed for the U.S. at the 1988 Jr. Pan American Games, was widely criticized for comments she made related to the Nassar scandal during an interview with NBC’s “Today” show.

“I was seen by Larry Nassar myself, but I was not abused by him, and the reason why I wasn’t abused by him is because my coach was by my side when he saw me,” Leung said. “I was seen by him in a public setting and so I understand what the setting needs to be like in order to ensure safety for our athletes.”

Leung later apologized for the comments, acknowledging that they were “insensitive.”

Leung also drew criticism from former U.S. national team members and their supporters when Olympic champion Mary Lou Retton said in a television interview that Leung was consulting with her. Retton was on the USA Gymnastics board of directors during the Nassar scandal and, according to published reports, was an early defender of the former U.S. Olympic and U.S. national team doctor.

Leung’s first big move at USA Gymnastics was to hire Edward Nyman Jr. as the organization’s first ever sports medicine and science director in the spring of 2019.

“The director of sports medicine and science position is integral in addressing our top priorities of athlete health, well-being and safety,” Leung said at the time of Nyman’s hiring. “Making this hire early on in my tenure was important because it is critical for our becoming more athlete-centric. Ed’s collective professional experiences make him uniquely suited for this role.”

But Nyman was fired after just one day on the job. USA Gymnastics told SCNG that Nyman was fired for failing to reveal that his wife was under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for emotional and verbal abuse. USA Gymnastics documents obtained by SCNG, however, revealed that top USA Gymnastics officials had been aware of the investigation of Nyman’s wife and her Ohio gym since at least the summer of 2017 and had in fact referred complaints it had received to the center.

One of Leung’s other big hires was Geer, a move that raised more than a few eyebrows given that she was brought on board while the organization was still in federal bankruptcy proceedings.

As USA Track & Field’s chief marketing and communications officer, Geer spent more than a decade as the organization’s chief spin doctor, defending naming a previously banned doper to Team USA’s coaching staff, the NGB board’s decision to override an overwhelming vote of its membership, and the $1.2 million salary and lavish travel of the group’s CEO while many American Olympic track hopefuls struggled to make ends meet.

Geer was paid $208,862 by USA Track & Field and received an additional $29,092 in compensation from a related organization, according to Interal Revenue Service filings. In other words Geer was making annually nearly ten times the $25,000 bonus USATF at the time gave to Olympic gold medal winners.

Another person Leung has given a leading role in creating culture change is Kim Kranz, USA Gymnastics’ chief of athlete wellness.

USA Gymnastics in November 2020 found dozens of allegations of physical, verbal and emotional abuse against three Orange County gymnastics coaches “disturbing” and “credible and substantiated.” The USA Gymnastics investigation and ruling were prompted by a SCNG report that revealed that Vanessa Gonzalez and other coaches at Azarian U.S. Gymnastics Training Center allegedly routinely physically, emotionally and verbally abused, bullied and belittled, and pressured young female gymnasts to continue training and/or competing while injured.

One of the gymnasts abused was Block’s daughter.

Gonzalez and other Azarian coaches allegedly slapped gymnasts, hit them with objects leaving marks, threw shoes at them during training, and pulled them by their hair, according to formal complaints to USA Gymnastics and interviews.

Another Azarian girls head coach, Perry Davies, on a regular basis tickled young female gymnasts after pinning them down and sitting on them.

Instead of suspending or permanently banning the coaches, Gonzalez and Davies were given provisional suspensions and Gonzalez was back in the gym just two days later after completing an online SafeSport training as part of a settlement agreement signed off on by Kranz.

Leung and USA Gymnastics were on the verge of hiring Valeri Liukin as the women’s national team high-performance director last year, despite Liukin being under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for multiple allegations of verbal and psychological abuse of young gymnasts, according to three people familiar with the hiring process

Leung and USA Gymnastics officials were aware of the allegations but only chose to go another direction after an SCNG report made the U.S. Center SafeSport investigations public. Since then a U.S. national team member has filed complaints alleging she was verbally abused by Liukin, according to two people familiar with the complaint.

Yet there was Liukin standing there on the SAP Center competition floor Sunday, hands on his hips, shaking his head in exasperation when one of his gymnasts misstepped.

From my seat, I could see Al Fong, one of the most successful and controversial coaches in American gymnastics for parts of five decades. Fong has coached two Olympic silver medalists and six World champions at the Great American Gymnastics Express in Blue Springs, Missouri, 20 miles east of Kansas City.

Two gymnasts coached by Fong have also died.

Julissa Gomez, a gymnast coached by Fong, broke her neck and was instantly paralyzed while attempting a difficult vault skill at an international competition in Tokyo in May 1988. Fong had pressured Gomez to attempt the skill, according to multiple published reports.

Gomez died in August 1991 from an infection related to her paralysis.

Christy Henrich, another gymnast coached by Fong at GAGE, was fourth at the 1989 World Championships on the uneven bars. A year earlier she missed making the U.S. Olympic team by a hundredth of a point.

Fong allegedly pressured Henrich to train and compete while injured and encouraged her to lose weight, according to multiple published reports.

“He was absolutely insane,” Jack Rockwell, an athletic trainer, said of Fong’s coaching of Henrich in the 1995 book “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters.”

Henrich developed anorexia nervosa and died in July 1994 from multiple organ failure related to starvation. She weighed less than 60 pounds at the time of her death.

Her family blamed Fong in the media and barred him from the funeral.

Fong is currently being investigated by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for physical, verbal and emotional abuse, according to confidential SafeSport documents obtained by SCNG.

The investigation of Fong, which was first reported by SCNG in February, has been ongoing since at least June 2020 and is in response to approximately 40 allegations of abuse, according to four people familiar with the investigation and U.S. Center for SafeSport documents.

Still Fong was credentialed by USA Gymnastics to coach in San Jose this weekend.

A few yards away, directly across the arena floor from where Leung sat, coaches walked by Liukin and patted him on the back and high-fived him. Fong received a similar reception, like Liukin still firmly in the embrace of the sport, the culture.

Whether from press row or Section 107, Row 23, Seat 16 the scene was obscene.

“I’m not sure what has exactly changed,” Block said Sunday.

At the time of USA Gymnastics 2020 ruling in the Azarian case the organization’s “Safe Sport Investigations and Procedures” stated that “USA Gymnastics will give notice to, and consult with each person reportedly harmed by the misconduct if USA Gymnastics enters into the agreed-upon resolution.”

USA Gymnastics’ decision on the extent and nature of the coaches’ suspensions and to allow them to return to coaching was made without the survivors and parents like Block (as many as 30 of whom complained) being formally interviewed by USA Gymnastics officials or the organization holding formal hearings where victims and family members could testify.

Thirty survivors and their parents silenced, censored by USA Gymnastics and a society afraid of the truth.

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Angel City FC finally solves OL Reign to remain in playoff race

• August 28, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Angel City Football Club has recorded a close loss to OL Reign, a blowout loss and even a second-half comeback loss in the short history between the teams.

In all, the first seven meetings in the series ended with Angel City winless with only one draw.

Sunday night, Angel City finally broke through against the Seattle-based Reign, holding on for a 2-1 win at BMO Stadium in front of a sellout crowd of 22,000.

The win moves Angel City (5-6-6) to 21 points and ninth place in the standings. Angel City is now three points behind the sixth and final playoff spot in the 12-team league. However, things remained bunched up with four points separating sixth from 10th place. There are five games remaining in the regular season.

“They’re very organized and a well-coached team and they know how to win and we knew that we had to be the best versions of ourselves,” Angel City interim coach Becki Tweed said. “We focused a lot on us. There were some tough times tonight, but we were able to pull through.

“You can see in these last eight-nine games, that we have a plan. We know that teams will try to take our strengths away, but you have to have a Plan A, B or C. They tried to close space on Savannah (McCaskill), but we had the ability to play over the top.”

Angel City took a 1-0 lead into halftime thanks to Clarisse LeBihan’s 14th-minute goal and doubled its lead on Madison Hammond’s goal in the 57th minute.

Hammond contributed to the sequence that led to LeBihan’s goal, with a ball out of midfield that Scarlett Camberos chased down and eluded OL Reign goalkeeper Claudia Dickey. Camberos, with three defenders trying to defend the goal, passed to Le Bihan, who scored.

“I would say she had a well-rounded night,” Tweed said of Hammond.

Things did become interesting in the 75th minute when Scarlett Camberos brought down Bethany Balcer, giving OL Reign a penalty kick. Megan Rapinoe stepped up and put her shot under a diving DiDi Haračić, cutting the deficit in half at 2-1.

Last season, Angel City had a 2-0 lead against OL Reign but allowed three second-half goals to get the loss.

“The first half, I thought our quality wasn’t good enough, we didn’t move the ball quick enough,” OL Reign coach Laura Harvey said. “In the second half, I thought we were the better side, we played quicker and I thought we were pushing and if we had five more minutes, I thought we would have got the equalizer.”

However, Angel City was able to hold off any late chances and preserve the three points and increase its unbeaten streak to nine games under interim coach Becki Tweed – 5-0-4 across league play and the Challenge Cup.

Megan Reid had a key block on a shot inside the 18-yard line and later Jasmyne Spencer broke up a Reign attack with a sliding tackle to win the ball.

“It not always pretty, but to hold them off was important and we got the result,” Angel City defender and captain Ali Riley said. “We probably could have been more clinical in the attacking third, I thought we could have been up more, but it’s something we’ll look at and go forward.”

Angel City next plays Friday with a road match against the Kansas City Current, which is two points behind in the standings.

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Galaxy eliminated from Leagues Cup after Vancouver rallies with two late goals

• July 31, 2023

CARSON — At the 80th minute mark, the Galaxy could visualize a spot in the Leagues Cup Round of 32.

However, the final 10-plus minutes of Sunday’s final group stage game against Vancouver would go down as just another disappointing ending.

With a one-goal lead, the Galaxy gave up an own goal and just before the end of regulation, a deflected shot led to the winning goal allowing Vancouver to escape with a 2-1 win in front of 14,787 at Dignity Health Sports Park.

“I thought for 70-plus minutes we by in large were in great control of the game,” Galaxy coach Greg Vanney said. “Like we’ve had over the course of the season, we had a lot of really good opportunities to take the game to 2-0. Looks on goal, attacks that have the right numbers, opportunities to create separation. We don’t and then we don’t manage the game and I put myself in that too, we don’t manage the final 15 or so minutes.”

Vancouver will face either Tigres or Portland in the Round of 32. The Galaxy, meanwhile, is eliminated and will be off until returning to MLS play Aug. 20.

In the 81st minute, a cross came in from the left that bounced off of Galaxy defender Lucas Calegari and into the goal to allow Vancouver to tie the game at 1-1.

Ten minutes later, the first of a three-minute stoppage time, an initial cross was deflected by Galaxy midfielder Efrain Alvarez, into the path of Ryan Gauld, who attempted a half-volley, but that attempt found its way through to Brian White, who beat Galaxy goalkeeper Novak Mićović for the winning goal.

“At the end, I think we deserve to tie,” Vancouver coach Vanni Sartini said. “The win is a steal. I think the real result should have been a tie and then deciding in penalties who was going to go through, but you know, sometimes happens that you lose when you don’t deserve to lose and today we won probably not deserving to entirely to win.”

Also, sometimes, the Galaxy lack of finishing also happens. Or this season, has been a constant problem.

“When they had the chance, I forgot who shot it, but it went out and I thought, maybe the Gods of football today are in our favor,” Sartini said.

The Galaxy opened the scoring in the 16th minute on Riqui Puig’s goal. The Galaxy managed just three shots on goal and finished with 16 shots total.

“I feel like it was a microcosm of some of the games we’ve had through the course of the season,” Vanney said. “Where again, it’s not necessarily that we had a lot of shots on target, we missed target, we’re around the area, we get things blocked, we’re just not clinical in the final action and when you don’t that with teams you are, I believe dominating through large stretches of the game, they hang around. You can put them away and the game is done and their spirit is broken and you can see it out, but because they kept hanging around at 1-0, there wasn’t a broken spirit, they were always just around.”

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Small sewage spill prompts closure of stretch of bay water in Newport Beach

• July 31, 2023

A small sewage spill forced the closure of a portion of the bay water in Newport Beach on Sunday, July 30, authorities said.

Around 140 gallons of sewage spilled into the area near the Aloha Drive/Linda Island bridge on Sunday after a rental boat struck a sewer line, Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said on social media.

A spill report submitted by the city of Newport Beach to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said the boat attempted to pass under the bridge Sunday afternoon and accidentally broke a 3-inch pipe located under the bridge.

The spill was stopped but the waters from 500 feet upcoast to 500 feet downcoast of the bridge were expected to remain closed to swimming, surfing and diving for at least three days.

The closure could last longer if the results of follow-up water quality monitoring do not meet acceptable standards, according to the OC Health Care Agency.

For information on the closure, contact the Orange County Health Care Agency at 714-433-6400 or visit ocbeachinfo.com

To report a sewage spill, call (714) 433-6419.

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Angels swing deal for two more bats: Randal Grichuk and C.J. Cron

• July 31, 2023

TORONTO — With a lineup decimated by injuries, the Angels swung a deal to pick up first baseman C.J. Cron and outfielder Randal Grichuk from the Colorado Rockies on Sunday night.

The Angels sent the Rockies minor league pitchers Jake Madden and Mason Albright. Madden was the No. 8 ranked prospect in the system, according to MLB Pipeline, and Albright was 28th.

Cron is hitting .260 with 11 homers and a .780 OPS for the Rockies. Grichuk is hitting .308 with eight homers and an .861 OPS.

Both players are set to be free agents at the end of the season. They will make a combined $6 million for the rest of the season, further pushing the Angels above the luxury tax threshold. The Rockies reportedly included $2 million in the deal.

Grichuk helps the Angels fill the void from the loss of Taylor Ward, who suffered facial fractures when he was hit in by a pitch on Saturday. Cron gives the Angels another option at first base. All of the Angels projected starting infielders are currently hurt.

This is the second significant trade the Angels have made in the last five days, after adding pitchers Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López last week.

The Angels have made it clear that they intend to push for the playoffs in this final season before Shohei Ohtani is eligible for free agency, both in an effort to end the team’s eight-year playoff drought and prove to Ohtani the team is committed to winning.

The Angels are four games back in the wild card race and five games back in the American League West.

Cron, 33, and Grichuk, 31, were both originally drafted by the Angels, but traded away.

Cron played in the majors with the Angels from 2014-17. The Angels traded him for Luis Rengifo in spring training in 2018, and since then he’s played for the Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Rockies in 10 big league seasons. He was an All-Star with the Rockies in 2022.

Cron has a career .260 average with a .795 OPS. He has a career .814 OPS against lefties.

Grichuk, who was famously selected with the pick before Mike Trout in 2009, never played in the majors with the Angels. The Angels traded Grichuk, along with Peter Bourjos, to the St. Louis Cardinals for David Freese prior to the 2014 season.

Grichuk has since played 10 years in the majors with the Cardinals, Toronto Blue Jays and Rockies. He has a career .251 average with a .766 OPS.

Although the Angels offense has been among the top in baseball this year, they struggled over the weekend in Toronto, going 1 for 28 with runners in scoring position and scoring just five runs in the three games.

Cron and Grichuk also give the Angels some right-handed power in the middle of the lineup. The Angels had four straight left-handed hitters in the middle of their lineup over the weekend: Shohei Ohtani, Mickey Moniak, Mike Moustakas and Matt Thaiss.

The Angels are expecting infielder Brandon Drury, who has been out with shoulder inflammation, to be back by Thursday. Shortstop Zach Neto is currently day to day with back stiffness.

Once Drury and Neto are back, the Angels could use an infield of Cron, Drury, Neto and Moustakas, and an outfield of Grichuk, Moniak and Hunter Renfroe.

The Angels are also expecting to get Mike Trout and catcher Logan O’Hoppe back sometime in August.

Madden, 21, is 2-6 with a 5.46 ERA at Inland Empire, with 66 strikeouts and 39 walks in 64-1/3 innings. He was the Angels’ fourth-round pick in 2022.

Albright, 20, is 9-4 with a 3.62 ERA at Class-A Inland Empire, with 86 strikeouts and 20 walks in 79-2/3 innings. He was the Angels’ 12th-round pick in 2021.

The Angels created spots on the 40-man roster by placing Ward on the 60-day injured list and designating Kevin Padlo for assignment.

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Gold Phoenix, Philip D’Amato earn Eddie Read Stakes victory

• July 31, 2023

DEL MAR — Philip D’Amato is a heavy hitter when it comes to turf racing and the 47-year-old trainer hit a grand slam Sunday at Del Mar, sending out the top four finishers in the $250,000 Grade II Eddie Read Stakes.

Even veteran observers in the press box couldn’t remember if such a feat had ever been accomplished on the Southern California circuit. Saddling the top three finishers is tough enough, but to score a quadruple is extraordinary.

“I think I’ve come in 1-2-3, but I don’t ever recall 1-2-3-4,” D’Amato said in the winner’s circle after jockey Hector Berrios rode 9-2 shot Gold Phoenix to the victory. “I love this race. The Eddie Read has been very good to me over the years. I’ve won it a few times with some really nice horses and it’s just special to win it again.”

The victory was D’Amato’s fourth in the Eddie Read following wins with Midnight Storm (2016), Hunt (2017) and Bowie’s Hero (2019). His third stakes victory of the meet gave him 47 for his career at Del Mar, good for an eighth-place tie all-time with Peter Miller.

D’Amato said he never dreamed he’d sweep the top four spots.

“I was hoping they’d all run well, be up there, but I did not envision the superfecta,” he said.

Gold Phoenix, fifth early on in the nine-horse field and second when they turned for home, won for the fifth time in 14 starts and padded his career bankroll to $837,757 with the winner’s check of $150,000.

A 5-year-old Irish-bred son of Belardo, Gold Phoenix beat Balnikhov by three-quarters of a length. Pacesetter Masteroffoxhounds hung around for third, a half length behind the runner-up and a length in front of 9-5 favorite Count Again.

Final time for the 1 1/8 miles on the turf was 1:48.62.

Gold Phoenix, who won the Grade I Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita on March 4 but came up short in the Grade II Charlie Whittingham and Grade I Shoemaker Mile, won for the second time in three starts at Del Mar after winning last summer’s Del Mar Handicap with Flavien Prat aboard.

Berrios, who’s won seven stakes at Del Mar, gave the winner an excellent ride, prompting D’Amato to lavish praise on the 36-year-old native of Chile.

“He’s just a guy that horses run for him,” he said. “Very soft hands and he puts horses in the right spot. If they’re the best horse, they’re going to win. Between placing them right and just getting along with them and getting the most out of them, I think that’s why he’s so successful right now.”

Berrios and Juan Hernandez won three races on the 11-race program, putting them in a tie atop the rider standings with 11 victories.Said Berrios: “I took my time. I knew I had a lot of horse. As it turned out, I got the perfect trip. The pace was slow, I could tell, but that was OK. I waited and I waited then I asked. And when I did, boom! He was a runner.”

D’Amato said if Gold Phoenix comes out of the race in good shape, he’ll be looking for a repeat victory in the Del Mar Handicap on Sept. 2.

“I think that’s a perfect spot for him going into it this year,” he said. “He loves this course and now he has confidence under him. That will definitely be the spot we point to.”

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