And so it begins. Trans people will now be used as a wedge issue against colleges for people of faith.

Ed Source reports.

California bills take aim at religious colleges that seek to bar transgender students

As a high school student, Coley Baker found a “dream school” in Biola University, an evangelical Christian college with a palm-tree-dotted campus close yet not too close to home in Los Angeles County. But things happen in late adolescence – identity takes shape, feelings emerge – and by the 2014 Biola graduation ceremony, the young Christian woman Baker once appeared to be had spent two years hiding a new identity as a young Christian transgender man.

“I went into Biola not fully being sure that I was transgender,” said Baker, now 23. “Over the course of my time there, I became more certain.”

Baker never came out publicly about his transgender identity on campus. But at about the same time — in response to signals from the federal government that transgender K-12 students should be protected under anti-discrimination laws — Biola decided to apply for a religious exemption that would give the university the right to expel transgender students and refuse to admit, house or accommodate them, without jeopardizing federal funding.

Now two California bills are attempting to curb, at a state level, California’s own practice of granting private colleges religious exemptions that enable them to receive state funds while allowing them to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in admissions, housing and campus activities. The state currently gives a blanket exemption to the anti-discrimination provisions of the Equity in Higher Education Act to all colleges that are “controlled by a religious organization.”

Assembly Bill 1888, by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, proposes that the state withhold Cal Grant funding eligibility for colleges that violate state nondiscrimination laws. Senate Bill 1146, by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, would shrink the number of religious colleges that qualify for religious exemptions. Also under SB 1146, colleges that receive federal religious exemptions would be required to publicize that fact to prospective students.