Washington State voters appear poised to approve Initiative 638, a ballot measure that would bar biologically male students from competing on girls’ school sports teams and require female athletes to provide medical documentation confirming they were born female.
As of Wednesday, with ballots still being tallied, the “yes” side held a 57 percent to 43 percent lead, a margin that makes passage likely once the count is finalized.
Formally titled the Sex Verification Requirements for Female School Sports Initiative, the measure would require school boards and other governing bodies overseeing athletics to develop rules confirming an athlete’s sex. Verification could rely on “one or more” of several factors: “the student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
The campaign was backed by Let’s Go Washington, a political organization founded by Brian Heywood. Reacting to the early results, Heywood framed the outcome as a response to female athletes who had raised concerns about competing against transgender-identifying opponents.
“To every female athlete who wondered whether her voice mattered: tonight, Washington heard you,” Heywood said, according to the Washington State Standard. “Five years from now, I hope girl athletes don’t know this fight took place, because that will mean that boys know their place is not in girls’ sports.”
Heywood also named several individual athletes he said the measure vindicates.
“This is a victory for girls like Frances, Ahnaleigh, Sadie, Bayley, Charlie, Sierra, and countless others who have been told time and again by the majority party that their voices and opportunities don’t matter,” Heywood said. “The opposition was working overtime to tell these girls that their experiences were made up and didn’t matter. Tonight, those girls see that well over a million Washingtonians stand with them and care that their sports are safe and fair. Voters have your backs.”
Washington joins Nebraska and Arizona, where voters have passed similar measures restricting transgender athletes from girls’ sports competitions, as part of a broader wave of state-level ballot initiatives addressing the issue.
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