Rhiannon Ingle
Warning: This article contains discussion of discrimination against the trans community which some readers may find distressing.
A political action committee has announced that it has collected enough signatures to potentially get a school-specific trans sports ban onto Washington state’s ballot later this year.
Such a ban would require girls to undergo physical examinations in order to participate in school sports.
Last week (3 January), the right-wing group Let’s Go Washington announced that it had collected 445,187 signatures in support of Initiative Measure No. IL26-638, largely exceeding the 386,000 needed to advance the measure.
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In short, the initiative would effectively seek to change Washington law and school district policies in order to bar trans girls from competing in girls' sports.
Currently, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association allows trans students to play sports that align with their gender identity.
IL26-638 interprets existing state law as requiring students 'to undergo a routine physical examination prior to participation in interscholastic sports, which includes documentation of the student’s sex assigned at birth'.
The initiative would require school districts to 'prohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities with separate classifications for male and female students'.
Under the proposed initative, students athlete who are keen to participate in girls' sports would be required to provide 'a health examination and consent form or other statement signed by the student’s personal health care provider that verifies the student’s biological sex, relying only on one or more of the following: The student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels'.
This means that, in order to play girls’ sports, student athletes, many of whom are minors, could end up being subjected to blood tests or invasive genital exams.
A 2020 Human Rights Watch report on sex testing in international sports concluded that such tests 'violate fundamental rights to privacy and dignity', adding that sports governing bodies that implement sex testing create 'environments that coerce some women into invasive and unnecessary medical interventions as a condition to compete in certain events'.
LGBTQ+ outlet Them also noted: "IL26-638’s emphasis on athletes medically verifying their 'endogenously produced testosterone levels' could also perpetuate a larger racist trend of cisgender Black female athletes being targeted and even disqualified from sporting events due to not meeting arbitrary hormone requirements.
"In 2020, for example, World Athletics banned South African track gold medalist Caster Semenya from competing in the 800-meter race because her natural testosterone levels exceeded the maximum level allowed for that distance."
Meanwhile, the millionaire leader of Let’s Go Washington, Brian Heywood, claimed as per the Washington State Standard: "This is not a partisan issue, this is a common sense issue. This has broad support."
The outlet explains that lawmakers have three paths they can take if the submitted signatures from the initiative are verified.
These include: approving the initiatives and making them law, rejecting the initiatives and sending them to the ballot for voters to decide in November’s election, or they could pass an alternative to the proposed initiatives, and both versions would go to the ballot.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, it would likely take three to four weeks to review the signatures for the Let’s Go Washington initiatives.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the LGBT Foundation on 0345 3 30 30 30, 10am–6pm Monday to Friday, or email [email protected]