Initiative Measure No. IL26-638: K-12 girls' sports eligibility and biological sex verification

Official plain English statement

The Law as It Presently Exists In Washington, school districts may offer extracurricular sports opportunities for students. Those sports must be offered to all public school students without regard to sex, but public schools may provide separate athletic teams based on sex. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction also creates regulations and guidelines to eliminate discrimination in sports for students, and these regulations prohibit discrimination based on sex and gender identity. Public and private K-12 schools in Washington may allow individual athletes and teams to compete against athletes and teams from other schools. For public schools, a school district’s board of directors is responsible for regulating these athletic activities but may delegate that responsibility to a nonprofit organization, such as the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). A nonprofit organization that regulates interschool sports may not discriminate on the basis of sex and must have written rules and policies regarding student participation. The Effect of the Proposed Measure if Approved If approved, this initiative would change participation rules for interschool sports. This initiative would, in its own language, prohibit “biologically male students from competing with and against female students” on sports teams or in individual events that are designated for female students only. This would generally prevent transgender girls from participating on girls’ sports teams. This prohibition would affect public K-12 schools and also private schools that participate in the WIAA or similar nonprofit organizations. Students who want to participate in interschool sports teams or individual events that are designated for female students only would have to provide a form that verifies the student’s “biological sex.” That form must be signed by the student’s personal health care provider. The verification would have to be based on the student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels. Students would thus have to undergo some type of medical evaluation of their sex to participate in interschool sports designated for female students only.