The University of California (UC) system imposed transgender indoctrination on all students as a prerequisite for course registration this fall. The transgender indoctrination, which masquerades as anti-sexual harassment training, requires students to pass a quiz affirming transgender ideology before they can register for classes. While the university claims sexual harassment training is required by state law, the new training materials go far beyond what the law requires.

The UC system launched the controversial training in June 2025. Officially, the “Sexual Violence and Harassment, Anti-Discrimination, Prevention and Education (SHAPE) Initiative” fulfills the legal requirement for “mandatory annual Title IX compliance training to all UC undergraduate and graduate students” the university system said.

However, according to screenshots of the training recently published by Young America’s Foundation, the hour-long training delves deep into gender ideology. For example, a “hostile environment may be created when someone demands that others use a particular bathroom that does not correspond to their gender identity or uses the incorrect pronoun,” the training warns. “Intentionally calling someone their name used prior to transition, as opposed to their lived name, is called dead-naming, and may be a form of sexual harassment.”

To complete the training, one must score 100% on a 10-question quiz, although they have unlimited attempts to do so, according to an FAQ page on the SHAPE curriculum at UC San Diego. One question on the UC San Diego quiz requires students to respond to the following prompt:

“My name is Mona, and I am transgender. My classmate Jane continues to call me James, which was my name before I transitioned. Jane refers to me as a man and complains when I use the women’s restroom. I’ve asked her to stop, but she does not. I feel very disrespected and want this to stop. What type of prohibited conduct can this be?”

To complete the curriculum, students must answer with the politically “correct” answer, “hostile environment.” Such a question either screens out students with disfavored political views from the entire UC system or it forces them to affirm a statement at odds with their personal convictions in order to register for classes.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) raised concerns about the training, suggesting that using a transgender-identifying person’s pre-transition name constitutes sexual harassment. FIRE plans to get the UC system to answer whether the screenshots posted online accurately reflect the full training.

In response to criticism, UC spokeswoman Rachel Zaentz said that the system created the SHAPE training to comply with the legal requirements of AB 2608. “State law requires training on sexual harassment and sexual violence, which includes recognizing all forms of sexual misconduct,” she said.

Passed in 2024, AB 2608 requires “the California Community Colleges, the [15-campus] California State University, independent institutions of higher education that receive state financial assistance, and private postsecondary educational institutions that receive state financial assistance” to “annually train its students on sexual violence and sexual harassment” and to “consider updating” the training every two years, beginning in the fall of 2026.

The law’s only references to “gender” are found in a requirement that the training include “statistics on … the differing rates at which students experience sexual harassment and sexual assault in the educational setting based on their race, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.”

However, it redefines “sexual harassment” to include conduct with the “effect of … creating” a “hostile … educational environment.” The California Family Council notes that “hostile environment is “a term so broad and subjective that mere disagreement or differing beliefs can be interpreted as harassment.”

Thus, “What was originally presented as a sexual harassment prevention program has effectively evolved into a gender ideological conformity test. California’s new framework demands not only behavioral compliance but also ideological agreement, framing religious beliefs about biological sex as inherently discriminatory,” they argue.

AB 2608 “requested” the same review and updates of sexual harassment trainings of the 10-campus University of California system, without officially mandating it. However, the UC system complied with the request a whole year ahead of schedule, rolling out the new SHAPE training requirements for the Fall 2025 term. The training is in use at all 10 campuses in the University of California system, including UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz.

The separate California State University (CSU) system, with 15 campuses, still uses an older Title IX training, which was required by Executive Order 1095, last revised in 2015. According to CSU Bakersfield, the older training provides “special accommodation for those who are not comfortable with taking the training because they may be survivor, religious reasons, or a disability.” Under the new SHAPE training, the UC system only mentions exemptions for survivors.

California’s new sexual harassment training thus represents an aggressive attack on the religious beliefs of students who wish to attend. While the trainings purport to implement Title IX, in reality they appear to undermine Title IX by their affirmation of transgender ideology and the transgender agenda, which stands at odds with the rights and safety of women.

“By equating respectful disagreement with harassment” concluded the California Family Council, “California’s universities have blurred the line between protecting students from genuine mistreatment and enforcing a state-approved worldview regarding what it means to be a man or a woman.”