Washington appears to be the latest state that is getting set for a showdown over its decision to allow biological males to play in girls’ and women’s sports despite President Donald Trump’s executive order in February.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA)’s Representative Assembly proposed two amendments to its policies that would keep girls’ sports to biological females only and potentially offer an open division if student-athletes were interested.
Washington state is set up for a showdown over trans athletes in girls’ and women’s sports.
However, WIAA commutations director Sean Bessette said in a statement to The Seattle Times on Tuesday that the proposals would violate state law.
“The WIAA has been told by the Attorney General’s office, the Office for Civil Rights, and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction that proposed amendments ML/HS #7 and ML/HS #8 would be a violation under current Washington state law, affirming our attorney’s legal review,” Bessette told the paper. “The WIAA remains committed to following state law, and those amendments focused on gender-identity participation would not be implemented on August 1 if they were to pass under current state law.
“If state law were to change, the WIAA’s Executive Board has the authority and would need to alter the Association’s rules accordingly.”
The proposals will be voted on by the 53-person representative assembly but no changes will be made to the rules. The proposals titled ML/HS #7 and ML/HS #8 are strictly advisory votes only.
“Amendment would not be implemented under current State Law. Participation in girls’ sports would be limited to biological females,” the ML/HS #7 proposal read on the athletics organization’s website.
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A person waves a transgender pride flag during the People’s March and rally to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 18, 2025. (Nathan Morris/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Amendment would not be implemented under current State Law. Athletic programs would be offered separately for boys, girls, and an open division for all students interested,” ML/HS #8 read.
Washington state law requires local educational agencies to allow transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports “that most closely aligns with their gender identity,” according to the WIAA.
The Kennewick School Board filed a Title IX complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights against Washington state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal this week. The complaint included a plea for “urgent” federal intervention against the state’s ongoing policies that defy Trump’s order.
Reykdal previously claimed it was “inaccurate” to say there are only two genders during a video address in late February.
“It is quite simply inaccurate to say, biologically, that there are only boys and there are only girls,” Reykdal said. “There’s a continuum. There’s a science to this. There are children who are born intersex. There are children whose hormones and whose chromosomes are not consistent with their sex at birth.
“Our state laws make clear that children get to identify and participate based on the gender in which they identify. We’re going to uphold that law.”
Reykdal also insisted in that address that Trump does not have the authority as president to issue a ban on trans athletes in girls’ sports but conceded the U.S. Congress does.
General view of hurdles at a Track & Field event. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Another school district in Washington opted to take matters into its own hands and defy the state government in late February.
The Tumwater School District’s board of directors voted 3-1 Feb. 27 to ban trans athletes from playing for girls sports teams after a nationally publicized controversy involving one of its school’s girls basketball teams.
Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
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An Alaska woman is accusing the Alaska Department of Public Safety, two Alaska State Troopers and the A&E Television Network of compromising her privacy and safety as a confidential informant after they filmed an arrest without her consent.
The woman, identified in the filings as Jane Doe, says that she received death threats after she was a confidential informant whose information led to an arrest that was filmed and later aired on the Alaska State Troopers reality show.
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Claire Stremple for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.
California’s billionaires are not the only ones fighting back against the state’s largest health workers union this election season. Now the clinics are too.
The California Primary Care Assn., which represents more than 2,300 community health clinics, and Open Door Community Health Centers filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West from placing an initiative on the November ballot that would dictate how clinics spend money.
The clinic measure is less prominent than the billionaire-backed fight against a wealth tax, but recently came closer to appearing before voters.
The clinic’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the union’s ballot measure would interfere with federal laws and regulations that place strict spending requirements on nonprofit health clinics that serve low-income patients.
Joey Cachuela, general counsel for the clinic association, said in a statement the initiative threatens patient care. “We are filing this preelection challenge and need the courts to act to prevent this drastic measure from ever going to the ballot. Patient lives are at risk,” Cachuela said.
Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for the healthcare workers union, said the proposed initiative was “legally sound” and called the lawsuit a “desperate attempt by the clinic industry to avoid accountability.”
Dr. Elizabeth Sophy, right, who is a part of Father Joe’s Villages Street Health Team, examines Devlin Chambers at an encampment in downtown San Diego on March 22, 2024. Chambers, 60, said he has a pinched nerve in his back.
(Kristian Carreon / CalMatters)
Last month, union members turned in more than 1 million signatures to qualify the “Clinic Funding Accountability and Transparency Act” for the ballot. The union collected nearly double the number of signatures required to place the proposal before voters.
Under California’s election rules, proposals that gather enough signatures qualify for the ballot after the secretary of state’s office verifies their validity.
The union proposal would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of revenue on services that fulfill the stated mission to “provide primary and preventive care to low-income and underserved populations.” It would also punish clinics that do not adhere to this spending formula and place the money in a state-operated account that could later be used for worker training and staffing programs.
“It is the intent of this initiative to create a reasonable minimum standard of mission-directed spending … to ensure clinic patient service delivery and workforce stability is prioritized over management and overhead spending,” the initiative states.
Union leaders and members argue that clinics spend too much money on executive pay and administrative overhead and too little on patients. They also contend that some clinics spend only half of their revenue on direct patient care, an allegation that clinics call misleading.
“We have one message for our clinics: Put patients first. It’s time for an end to wasteful spending. It’s time to make sure clinics are putting their money in patient care and not CEO pay,” said Brisa Barrera, a medical assistant from Santa Rosa Community Health during an April rally to celebrate delivering the signatures.
The clinic association, however, argues that the initiative would illegally force hundreds of community health centers to close by stripping nearly $2 billion from health systems.
Tory Starr, chief executive of Open Door Community Health Centers, which operates clinics in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, said the measure would be “devastating” to the organization’s rural patients and would result in layoffs, reduced services and closures.
A nearly identical version of the ballot initiative failed to pass in the state Legislature earlier this year.
The initiative is one of three measures the union has submitted to the ballot. Another aims to limit healthcare executive pay at $450,000, and SEIU-UHW is also backing the “billionaire’s tax” that has drawn ire from both Democrats and Republicans.
Hwang writes for CalMatters.
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