By admin 
For over two years, a 16-year-old transgender girl says she was bullied, excluded and discriminated against by her teammates and coaches at the Capital Crew youth rowing program housed at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center.
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The alleged discrimination — which she says included segregating her from the rest of the team, allowing false rumors to spread, excluding her from opportunities she was qualified for, misgendering her and perpetuating a culture of hostility against her — eventually led to her quitting the team. She suffered enormous mental health consequences, she said, including self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Now, through her mother, she has filed a lawsuit against her coaches, the Capital Crew youth rowing program and the Sacramento State Aquatic Center over sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and aiding and abetting of the bullying she faced from her teammates. In the complaint filed in the Sacramento County Superior Court under a pseudonym, she also names Sacramento State, its student government Associated Students, Inc., and the California State University trustees.
The Capital Crew competitive youth rowing program is separate from Sacramento State’s intercollegiate athletics program. But it is a program under the Sacramento State Aquatic Center. The center is run by the university’s auxiliary organizations Associated Students and The University Union along with the California Division of Boating and Waterways and the California Department of Parks and Recreation.
The lawsuit aims to reinstate the young transgender athlete’s participation in the women’s rowing program, fire the accused coaches and leaders at the aquatic center and strip Associated Students of its status as an auxiliary organization of Sacramento State. It also seeks to end to discrimination against transgender individuals and compensatory damages of an unidentified amount.
“The reason why this case is important, because at issue in this complaint, is the treatment of a child,” said Susie Cirilli, who is representing the child and her mother. “For over a year, this child was left unprotected while the people in charge — when not actively engaging in the hostility themselves — condoned the unlawful harassment that was being committed by the other girls on the rowing team.”
In different cases, Cirilli has taken on the NCAA and several universities across the country over transgender women athletes being banned from competing in sports events.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court’s six-justice conservative majority upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletics teams. It did not, however, make such laws mandatory, meaning California’s policy of permitting transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity remains intact.
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This case, Cirilli said, is different from others because it is not about access to competition; it is simply about the harassment and bullying of a child.
“It is important to understand that the rhetoric that is out there in the zeitgeist right now, the words and phrases and statements and news stories that are swirling around right now, people need to understand that it has direct effects on children,” she said.
Lawsuit details bullying, misgendering
According to the lawsuit, the child began rowing at Capital Crew when she was 12 years old. In 2024, she joined the girls’ team. The hostility she experienced began with a parent publicly complaining that she was a “boy on the girls’ team,” the lawsuit said.
The harassment from teammates began after that, per the lawsuit, and included exclusion from team meetings, refusal to acknowledge her presence, laughing at her and threatening her only friend not to hang out with her. Coaches, the lawsuit said, did not appreciate her achievements, misgendered her and left her out of team selections.
In January, she was segregated from the rest of the team and made to practice by herself on land while her teammates were on the water, the lawsuit said. In April, the isolation and bullying got especially bad, after a false rumor began spreading that she had inappropriately touched a teammate, it adds. Several times throughout this period, the child and her mother notified coaches and club leadership of the bullying, but according to the lawsuit, nothing was done. Finally, in April, the child left the program for the season. The lawsuit said the mother was informed last month that head coach Rich Wendling and assistant coach Brian Birch would no longer be coaching the girls teams. Both are still listed on the Capital Crew website as coaches.
Filed last week, the case is set for an initial case management conference in February. A Sacramento State spokesperson distanced the university and the larger CSU system from the issue. The Associated Students executive director said she could not comment on active litigation. Other accused individuals and organizations did not respond to a request for comment.
“The events alleged were part of a separate program for high school students operated by Associated Students, Inc., not Sacramento State,” the Sacramento State spokesperson said. “This incident does not involve Sacramento State students and is not affiliated with our intercollegiate athletic program.”
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