At least one progressive advocacy group is considering legal action for a the ballot measure should pass in Washington state, which would ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ school sports.
Gender Justice League, a Seattle-based LGBTQ advocacy group, told KUOW on Thursday that it may challenge the ban on privacy grounds, although the group has not yet officially announced a lawsuit.
“We are having active conversations with our partners and are also evaluating the legal options available to us. If there is a solution, we will challenge this ballot measure in court on behalf of our members, our community and trans youth,” said Danni Askini, the group’s executive director.
She said the Gender Justice League would challenge the measure, Initiative 638, based on a 2008 student privacy rights case that ruled that Washington schools requiring suspicionless urine tests of students was unconstitutional.
“We believe the Washington Constitution and the Supreme Court have been very clear that I-638 would go well beyond random drug testing and infringe on the privacy of all girls,” Askini said, adding that the measure “sets a really frightening and disturbing precedent.”
Washington’s ban, which is expected to go into effect on Dec. 3, the deadline for the secretary of state to verify election results, currently has 57% of the votes. Although thousands of votes remained to be counted Thursday, the Associated Press called the race Wednesday evening.
THE ban would force girls to undergo genital exama hormone test or chromosomal test to verify their birth sex before they can participate in a girls’ school sports team. It would be a philosophical shift for Washington State, which for nearly 20 years has allowed students to compete on sports teams that match their gender identity.
Other organizations opposed to the ban have not indicated whether they are taking legal action.
The ACLU of Washington has weighed in on passing the ban, but has not announced any plans to sue.
“As an organization, we do not talk about potential litigation,” a spokesperson for the group said in an email to KUOW.
In a blog post published Thursdayexecutive director Michele Storms called the ban “a devastating blow to our state’s history of inclusion and belonging.”
“Laws that target transgender girls do nothing to support our youth; they only encourage discrimination and bullying and sow division,” Storms wrote.
Shasti Conrad, chair of the Washington State Democratic Party, told KUOW on Wednesday that she planned to fight the ban in court. But the party walked back that statement Thursday morning, telling KUOW it had no plans to take the issue to court.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the organization that oversees school sports, wrote in a statement that it would continue to follow state law and was prepared to make “necessary changes” by Dec. 3.
“Implementation details, including updates to physical exam requirements, are under legal review. Once the review is complete, implementation details and updated forms will be provided to schools to assist with compliance with the new laws,” Sean Bessette, WIAA spokesperson, wrote in a statement.
Bessette also said his team could not provide further comment “due to ongoing litigation.”
Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington, the organization behind the ban, said he thought implementation would be simple.
“The reason there’s concern about this confusion is because people are being deliberately obtuse and trying to make this into something that it’s not,” Heywood said.
Heywood said doctors would have to review patient records to verify sex at birth — something not written in the text of the ban — and said he didn’t think implementing the ban in 30 days would be difficult.
“All these things go into MyChart,” Heywood said, referring to the electronic records system used by doctors. “So a doctor comes in, they’ve never met you before. They go in there and open MyChart. They say, ‘Oh, it’s a girl.’ They can check a box saying it’s a girl. That’s all that needs to happen. For 50 years, doctors have been able to understand this without anything complicated or complicated. »
Earlier this year, KUOW contacted a number of organizations representing pediatricians and doctor’s offices for comment and got few responses. Grace Shih, a family physician, told KUOW that she felt annual exams were separate from the sport-specific physicals required in schools and that she would not feel comfortable using information from one type of appointment to satisfy another. “I’m doing a separate review,” said Shih, who opposes the ban.
Washington joins 26 other states across the country in imposing some sort of restriction on trans students playing sports. It would, however, be one of the few Democratic-led states to have a ban in place.
Scott Greenstone and Cat Smith contributed reporting.
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