CA lawmaker calls trans athlete wave 'religious civil rights issue,' accuses Dems of manipulating youth

California Assembly member Bill Essayli talks to Fox News Digital about his work to protect women and girls in sports.

California Assembly member Bill Essayli is working to get a bill passed through the state legislature that would ban trans athletes from girls' and women's sports. 

Essayli introduced the bill on Feb. 14 amid a flury of controversial incidents in the state involving trans athletes playing on girls' sports teams. 

As one of the top Republicans in Sacramento, Essayli believes that the incidents have escalated the issue into one of civil rights for people of all religions in the state. 

"Not just for Christians, I hear from Muslims and Jewish Americans as well. People of faith have obviously strong values and morals and beliefs about there being two genders and how everyone was created by God into their perfect body," Essayli told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. "So it is partially a religious civil rights issue." 

California has allowed trans athlete inclusion in girls' and women's sports dating back to 2014 and is currently fighting President Donald Trump to keep that system in place after Trump's recent "No Men in Women's Sports" executive order. 

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The district Essayli represents, Riverside, has been mired in one of the most nationally-visible controversies after a trans cross-country runner took a varsity spot from a girl at Martin Luther King High School, and a lawsuit was filed after administrators compared "Save Girls Sports" T-shirts to swastikas. 

Meanwhile, communities in San Diego, the Bay Area and those in other Democrat-run states across the U.S. have dealt with their own incidents involving trans athletes over the past year