Transgender female athletes will continue to play on girls teams in Washington school sports despite some school boards’ efforts to switch them to boys teams or create a league of their own.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association took two proposed amendments to its policy on transgender sports off the table following a legal review. A representative assembly will weigh in on the policy later this month.
The WIAA is the main regulatory authority over school sports. Their representative assembly convenes online yearly to address amendments proposed to their policies, voted on by 53 school administrators across the state. WIAA policy allows for kids to play on whichever team matches their gender identity and expression, and it’s been in place since 2007, the first of its kind.
Delegates will still cast advisory votes on the amendments, but this will not change WIAA policy.
A review by the state attorney general’s office civil rights division suggested the proposals would violate federal and state civil rights laws, as well as the Washington constitution.
One amendment would have restricted girls’ teams to those assigned female at birth, enforced by checking birth certificates or a doctors’ affidavit. Another would have created a third ungendered competition category in addition to boys and girls.
The attorney general’s review said the two amendments mirror President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” the legality of which is still under debate. Washington law is not altered by this order, reads a letter from Emily Nelson, assistant attorney general in the Wing Luke Civil Rights Division.
“And federal law itself — which has not changed, despite the President and Department of Education’s letters, memos or executive orders — similarly prohibits discriminating against student-athletes based on their gender identity,” Nelson writes.
The state constitution protects students’ privacy and ability to keep “intimate personal information” private. Providing a birth certificate to prove sex assigned at birth may violate students’ privacy in this way, according to the letter.
“The proposed Amendments disregard these privacy protections for student-athletes by imposing a process that could be invasive and traumatic. And for transgender student-athletes, the Amendments risk exposing them to potential harassment by forcing them to play on a team that does not match their gender identity or appearance, and barring them from the sports communities many of them have participated and competed in for years,” Nelson writes. “It could also result in transgender students electing to forgo sports altogether, to the detriment of their physical and mental health.”
Of the 250,000 student-athletes in the state, five to 10 are transgender, according to WIAA.
Local school boards have weighed in on the issue, sending resolutions in support of the amendments to ensure “fairness in competition” and “protecting girls sports.”
When discussing the full list of amendment proposals in March, each Mead school board member was in support of one of the two amendments.
The board that oversees Central Valley School District was more split on the matter, with all but board member Cindy McMullen in favor of both amendments.
Central Valley School Board President Stephanie Jerdon called for legislative action on the matter, turning to the WIAA to lead the charge.
“Although it is encouraging that the WIAA has allowed districts representing their constituents to have discussion, it has not been coupled with legislative advocacy,” Jerdon wrote in an email. “As the organization whose mission it is to promote fair play and opportunities for all students, they should be at the forefront of such advocacy. We stand by our resolution and ask that legislators reconsider current laws which conflict with intended Title IX protections.”
Mead School Board President Michael Cannon was initially “disappointed and frustrated” that the amendments his board unanimously supported had been scrapped to only an advisory vote. He hoped to see more discussion around how they could restrict trans student-athletes in a legal way.
“There’s no attempt to incorporate the ideas that these amendments contain and create some language that satisfies the need that we’re trying to meet here,” Cannon said. “We’re trying to protect women’s sports, and we’re trying to do it in a way that’s compliant and that meets all applicable state laws and regulations.”
State Superintendent Chris Reykdal has been steadfast in his position that restricting sports based on biological sex is against state law.
“The President’s order directly contradicts state law, including the Washington Law Against Discrimination, and our laws prohibiting discrimination in our public schools,” he wrote in a statement when Trump issued the Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports executive order. “Our state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and we will not back down from that.”
