WASHINGTON, USA — Several Washington school districts are pushing the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) to implement more rules on how transgender athletes can participate in school sports.
Currently, the WIAA allows athletes to participate on teams that align with their gender identity.
Multiple school districts have submitted proposed amendments to the WIAA handbook which would change that policy, if approved.
Proposed Amendment No. 7 would specifically ban transgender girls from participating in girls' sports, or girls' sports divisions with athletes assigned female at birth. The amendment text says the purpose of the rule would be to "maintain fair and equitable participation" by addressing concerns about "potential physical advantages" of trans athletes.
The amendment is supposedly modeled after a program in Alaska that restricts participation in girls' sports but has replaced boys' sports with an open division for all student athletes who want to participate.
The amendment itself acknowledges there may be challenges in enforcing the rule, running into privacy and ethical concerns when it comes to verifying the biological sex of athletes.
Proposed Amendment No. 8 would create a third division of sports teams, an "open division," for trans athletes to participate in. The amendment would restrict both boys' and girls' sports to athletes who were assigned that sex at birth, and trans athletes wanting to play on teams according to their gender identity could participate in the open division.
This amendment specifically cites the 2024 WIAA Track and Field championship where a trans female athlete won over a cisgender female athlete in the finals of a race.
The amendment text for all proposed changes to the WIAA handbook will be finalized at the end of January and will be either rejected or approved in early April.
Here are the school districts that submitted amendments No. 7 and No. 8 to the WIAA handbook:
Amendment 7:
- Lynden School District
- Blaine School District
- Brewster School District
- Cashmere School District
- Colville School District
- Grand Coulee Dam School District
- Lake Chelan School District
- Lynden Christian School
- Mansfield School District
- Mead School District
- Okanogan School District
- Omak School District
- Oroville School District
- Tonasket School District.
Amendment 8:
- Eastmont School District
- Cashmere School District
- Colville School District
- Lynden School District
- Mead School District
- Moses Lake School District
- Thorp School District.
