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Washington state passes ballot measure banning trans girls from school sports
(www.theguardian.com)
Because our hate crime laws are insufficient.
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2026
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politics
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I think a lot of the left is being willfully ignorant of other people's viewpoints and I find it frustrating.
- The vast majority of people voting for this did not know all the content of the bill, "keep boys out of girls sports" is probably the most they heard about it, not the genital checking.
- Plenty of centrists and even right-leaning people are OK with adults doing what they want, but are still very protective of children. Limiting children from hormones is not considered a violation of trans rights for most people; rights have always been segmented by adulthood, the same way a child does not have the right to vote or join the military or get a tattoo. I think a large part of the issue is that the left (or any political ideology) is not really cohesive and is several ontologies in a trench coat; the popular rhetoric (woke version 1 as AOC calls it) from the left has been that gender is a social construct and is divorced from biological sex, if that's the case then why do trans children need hormones to be their preferred gender? As a fellow leftist I understand everyone experiences gender and it's relationship to society differently (euphoria vs dysphoria, etc.), but there has been a major nuance gap in public discourse which leaves many Americans feel like the left has pulled a bait and switch on them.
- Society has spent decades promoting girl's and women's sports and now feel like that's being trampled upon by allowing biological males (who have a distinct physical advantage) dominating their space. It'd be like getting rid of weight classifications in power lifting, anyone under 6 feet would never win again and short people would be ousted out of another sport.
Dominating girls sports? Of course that is nonsense. Meh.
Unfortunately I can't disagree. I do wish people would look something up rather than assume as the initiative did at least say that "it would require verification of a student's biological sex." I guess people didn't ask the obvious next question of "how?"
Proper education and understanding is one of the biggest issues in society. We're always moving too fast as society intends, so that we're too tired to think about things, we've got bills to pay, and social media primes us to make and stand behind snap judgements.
We really didn't circulate this ad enough.
Thankfully it should get immediately challenged at the state level based on discrimination since it only applies to girls.
Unfortunately I can't disagree. I do wish people would look something up rather than assume
You can't say that, in agreement with someone who said "by allowing biological males (who have a distinct physical advantage)". If someone had done the former, they'd understand the latter is not a blanket statement you can throw around
Relax everyone. Conservatives only want to inspect the athletic girls' genitals. It's not like they are trying to look at non-athletic girls or even naked boys. That would be gross and immoral.
Each young, athletic girl who has genitals that are capable of passing a detailed inspection with a rating of 7 out of 10 or higher will be permitted to play girl-sports in public for everyone to look at, record and enjoy. And to prevent any criticism from the libs, all genital inspections will need to be video recorded. For safety of course. And then reviewed by men who are officially qualified as authentic conservatives. For safety. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
Why are genital exams required? Don't they already already have a copy of everones birth certificate?
Genital exams are required because conservatives are pedophiles. It really is that simple.
FUN FACT: Conservatives are biologically unable to experience empathy. This is why they are unable to view women or children as humans. Humanizing others requires empathy.
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The measure says students in elementary, middle and high school who want to join girls’ athletics must first submit statements from their healthcare providers verifying their “biological sex”. Opponents have raised alarms the measure may force girls to endure “invasive and extreme” genital exams to participate in school sports.
Epstein is getting hard in is grave
That is just humiliating. These aren’t professional sports leagues for god’s sake.
What the fuck.
And specifically targeting girls. How the fuck does something like this even get on the ballot?
Brian Heywood, a republican millionaire who moved to WA from California to "escape liberals", has been abusing the ballot initiative system here using his wealth for years. He (and his PAC "Let's Go Washington") purposefully makes them misleading or otherwise confusing to understand in order to get them passed.
A silver lining is that most of his initiatives haven't passed (such as the initiative to repeal the millionaire tax), and those few that have over the years have been gutted, heavily modified, or found to be unconstitutional in the state supreme court. The supreme court here just became even more left leaning, and since the way he wrote the initiative makes it only apply to girls, it's likely to be thrown out.
Thankfully it's got a good shot at being ruled unconstitutional, assuming the supreme court doesn't fuck that up too.
Can the state supreme court block it?
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(9 replies)
Congrats you have banned 1% of children from a leisure activity and now require minors to present their genitals to adults of no relation.
1% is a huge overstatement. There's like 4 in the whole state.
4 trans minors in the entire state? I am doubtful.
This just adds another barrier and pathway to abuse to women's sports
Transphobia comes from misogyny, they want to hurt both the cis girls and the trans girls.
That's the point! Brian Heywood wants girls and women to avoid playing sports.
We won the war but lost the battle... Also this is sure to get sued and challenged as it's a direct discrimination based on sex and title IX prohibits that shit
The State Constitution also prohibits this. It will hopefully never take effect because a state court must shut this down.
It wouldn't be the first right-wing ballot initiative to go directly into the trash in this state.
The war is ongoing make no mistake.
Can someone explain to me how my state got everything else right for the most part but went stupid for this one?
If that's an actual question, my guess at an answer is that since this election's blue wave was more voting against Republicans than for Democrats, it's not a sign of fundamental change among the electorate. People mostly still believe today what they believed a few years ago (though there's clear leftward shift), and one of the few genuinely popular things Republicans have is their anti-trans agenda. Therefore when typically Republican-leaning people got to vote on it, they voted against Republicans and simultaneously against trans rights. This is doubly so because trans women in sports is one issue where Republicans can actually make a seemingly rational (but wrong) argument for their case.
Some things lag in politics. Trans kids in sports are the new boogeyman so most people have a hard time accepting the premise. If trans kids are going to be excluded we at least need to focus on education and general acceptance. When I was in high school pretty much nobody was openly gay although I like to think we wouldn't have treated them like lepers (probably would have). Meeting LGBTQ people in college was common though and a lot of us got over our fears and misconceptions. I've met maybe 3-4 trans people in my entire life but in actuality it was probably more because they didn't feel safe to present as the opposite gender. Unfortunately I think it will take time to get over the initial shock and the best we can do is to try and defend their right to self-determination and encourage them to be who they are so everyone can see this is really no big deal.
Also from a purely propaganda point it's a great wedge issue, mostly because it's what I like to call a grey water issue wherein theres a lot of nuance involved so it makes people stupid. Ideally people would stop being stupid and handle this based on an instance by instance basis especially since there are so few trans folks to begin with.
Mind you I know enough about biology to know that it's a rainbow of fucken grey, because biology abhors easy answers. There's no such thing as a perfect specimen only a type specimen and even that's ignoring a lot of variation.
Serious question: does this explicitly say that the person whose job it is to inspect the genitals of girls cannot touch the girls?
If not, there's almost certainly going to be a pedo in this position taking advantage of this new rule to touch underage girls' genitalia
The article says statement from their healthcare provider, so they should be subject to the Hippocratic oath.
History shows that to be very optional
Certainly the people implementing these bills and initiatives have a better sense of reality than the idiots voting for them, and so thus must have some sort of even worse goal.... Right?
Like, maybe their goal is to just split people, and isn't entirely horrific laws based on pure fear, ignorance, and bigotry... Right?
...right?
I'm so tired.
They're all from the same rich asshat so people have thought that it could have been a strategy to get more centrist/right leaning voters to come out and also vote to remove the millionaire's tax.
A bit of humor for the time: https://theneedling.com/2026/11/05/girls-finally-safe-now-that-they-have-to-show-adult-their-vagina-to-play-school-sports/
Also fuck Brian Heywood!
Super disappointed and the ballot guides argument for and against focused on very stupid points and not on anything to do with facts about transwomen and girls, not highlighted the discrepancies of greeting girls and women different from boys and men.
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Wow I thought Washington was inclusive
Depends on which side of the mountains
If you look at the map, pretty much the whole state outside of Seattle metro voted for it :(
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