Proposal to keep trans athletes out of girls’ sports fails in Washington state
Washington state’s governing body for middle and high school athletics has rejected a proposal to limit girls’ sports to students assigned female at birth.
The move marks the latest clash between Washington and the Trump administration over gender identity policy.
The proposal narrowly failed on a 31 to 22 vote, according to results posted on the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association website on Monday.
Rule amendments need at least 60% of the vote to pass, according to the association’s policy. This proposal got about 58%, and would’ve passed with just one more vote.
Additionally, a second proposal that would’ve created a third “open” division for transgender athletes was soundly defeated with a 13 to 40 vote.
Even if the proposals had passed, neither would’ve been enacted. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association made the vote “advisory only” late last month, after a legal review found the proposals would violate state anti-discrimination laws.
In a news release Monday, the association reiterated its commitment to following state laws moving forward. But, if state laws change in the future, “the WIAA Executive Board holds the authority to revise policies accordingly—and now has input from the membership on how to proceed in that event, while remaining in compliance with state law.”
David VanderYacht is the superintendent of the Lynden School District, one of 14 districts behind the proposed rule change to ban trans girls from girls sports. Although the amendment failed, VanderYacht said Monday he hopes it sends a message to state officials that this conversation needed to happen — and it shouldn’t end with this vote.
“There’s a majority of school districts across this state that voted for change,” he said. “My hope out of this is that people will see it for what it is around fair competition, not that it is a subset of rural, bigoted communities that don’t want to support all children. This really is about fairness in girls sports.”
Washington Interscholastic Activities Association policy has allowed trans students to participate in sports programs consistent with their gender identity since 2007. At that time, it was among the first policies of its kind in the nation and was held up as a model for inclusivity.
But the close vote on the girls’ sports amendment signals how divisive and contentious the debate around transgender athletics has become in recent years — especially in the wake of President Donald Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order banning trans girls and women from participating in girls and women’s sports.
The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” also directs the federal government to withhold funding from educational institutions that don’t comply.
Several state officials have spoken out against the order.
State Superintendent Chris Reykdal has been the loudest voice, calling the order discriminatory and a federal overreach. He has advised districts to continue following existing guidance from his office, which requires schools to “allow all students, including transgender and nonbinary students, the opportunity to participate on the interscholastic sports team that most closely aligns with their gender identity.”
Reykdal has also pledged to take legal action if federal funding is paused, withheld, or removed from any public schools in Washington, as Trump threatened to do in his order.
When the U.S. Department of Education launched a Title IX investigation into the Tumwater School District last month, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor alluded to this threat.
“If Washington wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Department, it has to follow federal law,” Trainor said in a news release at the time.
The conflicting guidance at the state and federal levels has put schools in legal limbo, leaving districts divided on whose policy to follow. Some, concerned about the threat of federal funding being pulled, have appealed to the feds for clearer guidance.
The Kennewick School Board took it a step further, filing a federal complaint against state officials, alleging they’re preventing the district from following the order and they don’t want it to lead to the loss of millions of dollars of critical funding.
Last week, the Lynden School Board passed a resolution asserting their intention to file similar federal complaints against OSPI — for both its gender-inclusive schools policy and its position on transgender athletics.