LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Days after a landmark law went into effect requiring California schools to teach about gay historical figures, a new piece of proposed legislation is likely to spark even more controversy.
Sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), AB 266 would require schools to allow students to play on sports teams according to their “gender identity” and not their biological sex.

The bill — which is currently before the Assembly Education Committee — was initially aimed at resolving conflicts among local governments “and other interests” through the creation of a state sports commission.

However, revised language in the proposed bill would mandate that students “shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs, activities, and facilities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records”.

Under the proposal, a boy who claims a female “gender identity”, for example, would have the right to try out for a girls sports team.

In addition, the bill would also require opposite-sex access to “sex-segregated facilities” that could possible include locker rooms.

Ammiano claims to be the first San Francisco public school teacher “to make his sexual orientation a matter of public knowledge”.

In 1977, he worked with prominent gay activist Harvey Milk to defeat an effort that would have prohibited gay teachers from working in California.

Assemblyman Don Wagner (R-Irvine) is among those on the Assembly Education Committee set for a hearing on the bill on Wednesday.