They had an initiative, I638, on the ballot.
This ballot measure would prohibit biological males from competing in school sports reserved for females and require students to provide a signed statement from a healthcare provider verifying their biological sex based on reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or natural testosterone levels.
The practical results of that would be that young girls who wanted to participate in sports would have to pull their pants down and get their genitals inspected.
For shame. At least King County, where I grew up, rejected it. The rest of the state is just full of panty-sniffing peeping perverts, I guess.
Having to prove the femininity of their daughters is going to end up antagonizing quite a few of the people who voted for this initiative (and it isn’t going to be comfortable for the daughters themselves, even if it is just a statement that their physician emailed to them with no need for an office visit).
[hmmmm…. I wonder what sort of proof of femininity a teen-mom would have to provide. I imagine that going through a pregnancy that you weren’t too keen on in the first place, and then being told – after being up most of the night with a colicky baby – that you need to make an effort, even a trivial effort, to get your femininity verified would not go over well.]
I phone-banked against this so many Sunday afternoons. Of the people who bothered to respond, most of those who heard what it was about were very much against it. I got very few ‘oh, we can’t have boys in girl sports, so unfair’. But in the last few weeks I got quite a bit of swearing at me. Not sure if that was because people were annoyed about the call or because the haters convinced them.
In any case, the verification methods specified by the initiatives are at least one of “reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.” And, in many parts of the state sports physicals are done in.a group setting. Let it sink in.
Yeah me too.
I grew up in northern Washington and survived the Cold War for this?
There is some hope.
This probably isn’t legal in the least and the courts might throw it out.
I missed where they are going to make little boys prove anything, which makes it discrimination.
The other thing that came out of the Blue Wave is that most people in the USA don’t really care much about Trans people one way or another. The GOP ran on Trans hate and it didn’t work at all.
Mostly because Trans people existing don’t effect our existence at all.
The GOP need to stop the Trans witch hunt. I suppose they will go back to searching out commies or Antifa, which also didn’t work for them.
Reminds me of a weird “short story” I ran across a while back. The irony being that it started with the boys all having to get their “equipment checked”, to make sure it was working right, and ended with, “Ok, tomorrow we are checking the girls.” You can fill in the blanks…. Kind of figure the author must have been one of these, “concerned Republicans”, i.e., creeps, and such “fantasy” must be one of their fever dreams – after all, it was also the same collection of clueless nitwits that thought that the book version of 50 Shades was a) well written, b) should be made into a movie, and c) constituted normal sexual behavior.
Basically, they are all a) perverts, of the basest kind, and b) all still mentally 12 years old – and thus functionally incapable of understanding why this sort of thing is both weird, and even when written as erotica, childish and twisted. But, of course, when written as law, its never the “boys” getting their, “equipment checked”, in the real world, just girls, with dirty old men wanting to check if its done right.
It’s not about fairness. If it were, then we would also be banning the strongest boys from competing with their weaker peers. It’s about enforcing women’s and girls’ role as the weaker, more delicate, less capable gender. Now any Washington girl who is too good at her sport is going to be open to scrutiny. To say nothing of how alienating this is going to be for trans girls.
This initiative is offensive on two grounds.
The bigotry involved. This is combined with a fundamental misunderstanding of competitive athletics: It’s at least 90% mental, even at the high school level. Which exposes the other ground:
Wasting time on making laws in advance concerning an extremely rare instance in high-school athletics, which are themselves offensive (and not just to nerds — also to anyone concerned about resource allocation in underfunded public schools). It’s also inconsistent with what those schools are required to do for their PE classes… by federal civil-rights law. Sorrynotsorry, Trumpistas and religious bigots, directives to/through the Department of Education don’t overrule either the statutes or the case law. They do, however, appear to overrule common sense, empathy, and understanding/acceptance that some people — which includes high school students, however grudgingly I must admit that after my high school experiences — aren’t Just Like You.
The substance is offensive. The waste of time and resources on a rare instance in an unusual circumstance (contrary to popular mythology, a considerable majority of high school students do not participate in interscholastic athletic competition) are equally offensive… and entirely unsurprising once one identifies the specific sponsors of this initiative (note: at least three of whom don’t even have children who now are or in the future will be in high school, let alone participants in interscholastic athletics).
I doubt this idiotic imitative will survive our State Supreme Court review. Demanding girls to prove they are girls (i.e. show their genitals to strangers) & not demanding boys to prove they are boys (i.e. show their genitals to strangers) ain’t gonna pass the laugh test.
Oops. ‘will not’ My bad
I think there is a case for trying to ensure fairness on the playing-field or swimming-pool.
For example, if you compare the world record times of male and female athletes in the 100 meter sprint, you’ll find that the male time is nearly one second faster than the female.. That translates into a large number of male sprinters who are faster than their fastest female, If this event were mixed-sex, a woman would never win. There is no reason why you couldn’t run as ,mixed-sex event except it wouldn’t be fair to the woman
The very point of competitive sport is to see who beats who!
So it is an oxymoronic proposal.
So the case must have that as a necessary premise, no?
Now, if you truly want to ensure fairness, It is very easy.
For example, have each competitor assigned a sequential number and then draw random(n) where n is the number of competitors. Each has the very same chance of winning, coming second, etc.
PS
Ahem.
If you want to use the male world record to justify excluding trans women, you have to compare men to trans women rather than men to cis women.
(After all, cis men are not the ones competing, are they?)
@9 Once again a transphobe pretending male/female are simple ideas we can cleanly apply to everyone. It doesn’t make sense to call people like me (trans woman) male, unless your goal is to enforce a class system based on gender assigned at birth
There are many problems with this law on many levels. I have not read the text of it, but how will it handle the inevitable cases where the listed markers of gender do not agree? For example, androgen insensitivity syndrome, where the karyotype can be XY, the gonads secrete testosterone, but the bodies androgen receptors do not function and so the person is phenotypially female.
Unfortunately Arizona passed something similar for bathrooms. I’m ashamed of and angry at my state.
@seversky, #9:
Go and fuck yourself with a cactus.
If this holds up for any length of time you’re going to see the number of girls in sports drop. Because a lot of them won’t think it’s worth the harassment. And which certain people on the right will see as a bonus.
The ethos of sports includes facing obstacles with courage and grace. The remote possibility that you might compete with or lose to a trans athlete who is stronger than you should be viewed as an opportunity to put this into practice. Whining about fairness and overreacting by making laws is unsportsmanlike.
tedw @13:
The initiative says ‘at least one of’. The moment one of the signifiers of maleness is on record the person is out of girls’ athletics. So if one knows one has an intersex condition, one uses the ‘verification’ method that suits them best.
timgueguen @16: yes, the drop in girls’ sports participation is predictable, and likely the intent of such laws. Their next target is overturning Title IX. At least for some of the organizations promoting these girl sports laws.
Dibwys
” I wonder what sort of proof of femininity a teen-mom would have to provide.”
Giving birth is one of those subtle sings that one might be female.
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Anat
“In any case, the verification methods specified by the initiatives are at least one of “reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.” And, in many parts of the state sports physicals are done in.a group setting. Let it sink in.”
gasp horrifying!
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I’d have enjoyed receiving one of your calls, I’d have talked your ear off. The standard genetic sex test is a cheek swab by the way.
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Uffdah
” It’s not about fairness. If it were, then we would also be banning the strongest boys from competing with their weaker peers.”
But that’s exactly what does happen. Fairness, when speaking of sports, means no advantage that is not earned. So those boys might be separated into weight or age groups depending on the sport and its demands, specifically so that the strongest aren’t competing against the weakest. It’s no fun if say 16 year olds are competing against 12 year olds – the physical development of 4 years gives a decided advantage in pretty much every sport.
So, age or year level divisions.
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Jaws
” a fundamental misunderstanding of competitive athletics: It’s at least 90% mental, even at the high school level.”
LOL! Sure, flyweight woman versus heavyweight man. She loses physically, but as that is only 10% of the battle, should be easy enough to overcome – she just has to be hungry for the win, right?
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Laurian
” Demanding girls to prove they are girls (i.e. show their genitals to strangers) & not demanding boys to prove they are boys (i.e. show their genitals to strangers) ain’t gonna pass the laugh test.”
Again, cheek swab. And the reason the female division has the safeguard and not the male is because male athletes entering the female division have a distinct advantage over the female athletes, which is not true the other way around. The male division is effectively the open division, though a female athlete would be silly to enter.
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John Morales
” The very point of competitive sport is to see who beats who!
So it is an oxymoronic proposal.”
Only if we use your definition of fairness. It applies well to things like lotteries, bingo, prize draws, and names-from-a-hat styles of competition, but not to sports, and for the exact reason you cite – someone is most likely to win due to being the best at the event.
What you should have inferred from that internal contradiction is that your definition not applicable in this context. As I said earlier, a better one for sports is no unearned advantage.
John again
” If you want to use the male world record to justify excluding trans women, you have to compare men to trans women rather than men to cis women.”
The male record is the appropriate one to use, given trans women are male.
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Dangerousbeans,
It’s sex at birth, and there is no need to attach a class system to it. In fact the arc of feminism has been to oppose exactly that… but at no point is that aided by letting trans women into women’s events.
@matri, #20: Go and stick your finger in a light socket.
Silly person.
That’s 2 invitations to commit self harm with no rebuke, i guess that’s just the norm in these parts.