Voters in Washington State are backing Initiative 638, a measure that would ban males who identify as female from playing on girls’ sports teams.
Initiative 638, also called the Sex Verification Requirements for Female School Sports Initiative, would prohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students and would require girls to submit documents from their doctor stating that they were born female.
While votes are still being counted in Washington, as of Wednesday, the “yes” vote on the initiative led with 57 percent to the “no” vote of 43 percent, and it seems most likely that once counting is done, the “yes” votes will prevail.
“To every female athlete who wondered whether her voice mattered: tonight, Washington heard you,” said Brian Heywood, founder of Let's Go Washington, the political organization backing the measure, 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."
“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. 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,” Heywood added.
If the measure passes, it would require School boards, or other school governing entities, to create rules for what sex verification would look like. It would rely on "one or more" of the following: "the student's reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
Successful campaigns joined the effort in Washington State for similar bans on trans athletes in girls’ sports that passed in Nebraska and Arizona.
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