politics

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.

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

This just adds another barrier and pathway to abuse to women's sports

I think a lot of the left is being willfully ignorant of other people's viewpoints and I find it frustrating.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Congrats you have banned 1% of children from a leisure activity and now require minors to present their genitals to adults of no relation.

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.

This dumb bullshit better get overturned ffs

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.

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!

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

Wow I thought Washington was inclusive

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.

If you get an explanation, let me know. I'm dumbfounded by this one.

Nearly every other thing I voted on went the way I expected/voted, off the top of my head the only ones that didn't were a state supreme court race and a local city election.

How did we get the other two state initiatives right but this one wrong??