Trans Girls in Girls' Sports in Washington State

Update: the Camas High School girls cross-country team won the district meet on Wednesday. But it was not pretty, according to The Seattle Times:

A transgender runner on the Camas High School girls cross-country team, who has been at the center of political controversy in recent weeks, placed second at a district meet in Southwest Washington on Wednesday afternoon. She helped her team secure the district title.

The transgender athlete competed in the boys category during the first race of the season before switching to the girls category in a Sept. 15 race and onward.

What came before? 

Last week, more than a dozen Camas runners walked off the start line in protest of their transgender teammate’s participation and others have decided to forgo the rest of their season. Opponents of transgender girls competing in youth sports organized a “Camas Courage” rally to support “girls’ sports and fair play” ahead of the district meet.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, the state’s governing body for interscholastic sports, has a longstanding policy that allows student-athletes to compete in the category consistent with their gender identity. Both the WIAA and school district have said the student’s participation has not violated any rules.

I would think those against trans athletes would go after this policy because it seems like low-hanging fruit to put pressure on that group that governs ALL sports. 

The bad part?

At the meet, there were designated sections where spectators could stand, primarily located near the start and finish area. Athletes and coaches gathered under tents that were separated from spectators by metal barricades and security.

The measures were in line with what the Camas School District outlined in the cross-country weekly schedule sent out to families prior to the meet. In that communication, the school district said it expected “additional security measures, including a police presence and some separation between athletes and spectators.”

It's a bit sad that the Camas athletes were running without some varsity runners who refused to run with the trans girl.

As athletes warmed up for their races, people gathered for the “Camas Courage” rally hosted in support of “girls’ sports and fair play,” per the rally’s poster. The gathering of approximately 80 people featured student and parent speakers who called on the crowd to vote yes on I-638.

I think if I was a student athlete and my parents pulled up to a meet and saw a crowd that was NOT there to cheer anyone on, I would worry. 

The ugly part?

There were cheers of “go girls” as the runners from four teams readied themselves on the start line. “Shame on the boy,” one spectator called out. 

Know what? I wish whoever was lead for this event had said something to the crowd BEFORE the meet. Calling out like that 1) is deliberately cruel to that student athlete and 2) put that issue in the heads of all the runners.

More ugly

The transgender athlete raced down the final stretch to cheers from some spectators and teammates, in addition to some boos. Applause and cheers followed the athlete’s name when they were announced as the girls’ varsity second-place finisher during the awards ceremony.

As the applause died down, one spectator standing on the other side of the metal barricade called out “that’s a boy.” 

end of update

More on the initiative to ban biological boys from girls sports.

From Facebook:

Tumwater High School girls track team stood on the podium at the Washington state championships in Tacoma wearing shirts that read “Keep Women’s Sports Female.”  

 

The moment came after a transgender athlete from East Valley High School in Spokane, Veronica Garcia, competed in multiple girls’ events and won a state title. Tumwater’s girls had beaten Garcia’s relay team in a prelim before finishing outside the top spots in the final.

Tumwater’s school board had earlier passed a resolution seeking to limit girls’ events to biological females after the district faced a federal investigation over a game involving a transgender athlete. The shirts drew immediate attention, with some calling them a protest for fairness and others labeling them anti-trans.

The girls wore the message on the medal stand.

The Seattle Times is doing an interesting thing this election season - dueling op-eds on initiatives. Yesterday it was on I-638, the ban on trans girls (who are biological boys) in girls' sports.

The Times has already written an editorial against the initiative. Here's part of it:

In 2007, Washington became the first state to allow transgender athletes to participate in sports in categories that are consistent with their identity.

In 2025, fresh off a presidential victory in which he used transgender people as political scarecrows, President Donald Trump issued one of his many overreaching executive orders that banned transgender girls and women from competing in sports in institutions that receive federal funding. Some states followed suit and issued bans as well, as did the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The U.S. Supreme Court this summer gave more authority to states to ban transgender girls in sports in two decisions it rendered, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox.

But Washington stood up to Trump’s order because the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s policy was inclusive of all students and consistent with state law.

IL 26-638 would send Washington back to the days of “femininity certificates,” when amateur women athletes, including Olympic athletes, had to carry proof that they had passed visual exams and chromosome testing that proved they were women. Under this proposed initiative, parents of girls as young as 12 could be subject to this violation of privacy.

Aside from the humiliation and violation of privacy, testing for genes and hormones isn’t cheap, which would keep girls without means out of competitive sports.

If this were strictly a “Washington problem“ it would be worth dissecting and studying as a pressing and compelling issue to be resolved by the electorate, informed with science. But it is not.

Here's the op-ed for it written by three women; one is a former college athlete, one is a coach, and the last is a student in Tumwater.

The American College of Sports Medicine’s consensus statement on sex differences in athletic performance concluded that males are typically stronger, more powerful and faster than similarly aged and trained females, with males generally outperforming females by roughly 10% to 30% in sports dependent on endurance, strength, speed and power. The International Olympic Committee and the NCAA confirmed that transgender women will not be permitted to compete in female categories.

Transgender girls took podium spots in Wenatchee track and field events, played basketball in Tumwater and allegedly assaulted a female wrestler in a match in Puyallup. Female cross-country athletes in Spokane said they dropped out of sports altogether.

These are not hypothetical situations; they are the real stories of real girls being forced out of their sports by boys. Girls are being told to be quiet, accept that boys have the right to take their places and that their voices don’t matter.

Here's the op-ed against it, written by three doctors and a nurse practitioner.

Under I-638, sponsored by MAGA megadonor Brian Heywood’s Let’s Go Washington, any girl from elementary to high school who wants to play sports would be forced to provide medically verified proof of their sex as a new part of sports physicals just for girls. Boys are exempt. It prohibits parents from using birth certificates, and Section 3(2) states that, to be in compliance, doctors must subject girls to examinations of their “reproductive organs,” or make parents pay for expensive genetic or hormone testing. Insurance will likely not pay for these expensive genetic and hormone tests because they are not medically necessary to diagnose, treat or manage a specific health condition.

Washington students currently remain fully clothed during sports readiness exams, and exams focus on cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and neurologic systems. But I-638 would change that, potentially even requiring pelvic exams, which are medically unnecessary for sports, and can emotionally and physically harm young girls. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says there is no medical reason for a pelvic exam for girls younger than 21, unless the patient has other health concerns.

The initiative is so poorly written that its sponsors have even said they wish they had written an initiative with more clarity on how it would be implemented. There is no explanation of when and how the government will enforce these rules, who can conduct sex inspections or what evidence will be required during genital, hormone or genetic tests.

I find both sides compelling on several points. But I would vote no on it for the following reasons even if I do not agree about trans girls in girls sports.

1. Boys are exempt. Why? That seems quite unfair that the girls would have to have a more extensive exam than boys.

2) The initiative is so poorly written that its sponsors have even said they wish they had written an initiative with more clarity on how it would be implemented.

Here's what AI had to say:

While supporters like Brian Heywood maintain that the intent is to ensure "equity, safety and competitive balance," the text's lack of precise procedural boundaries has left it highly vulnerable to legal and public relations challenges over how it would actually be enforced in public schools.

I'm sorry but if the writers of the initiative left out implementation that just made life a whole lot harder for school districts. It throws it to the Legislature to clean up this initiative (and perhaps that was by design). Meanwhile, it just opens the door to legal challenges.