Lawsuit filed against Washington transgender athlete ban

Meanwhile, locally, although Washington voters passed I-638, opponents say the issue is far from over. With a legal challenge filed this week, I-638 specifically targets trans athletes who were assigned male at birth, preventing them from competing in girl youth sports. Some who support trans athletes say they will fight to overturn election results. The initiative only impacts junior high and high school athletes, both public and private. ...that play under WIAA rules. It does not apply to co-ed or recreational leagues. Again, this week, a coalition of organizations from the ACLU to the Washington Education Association, which is the teachers' union, filed a lawsuit this week to block the initiative from going into effect on December 3rd. I spoke with mom Amber Phillips, who has two daughters, a senior and sophomore cross-country runners. Phillips says her girls are competing with transgender athletes. And it's impacting their future athletic dreams for D1 sports in college. Phillips says she is disappointed with those who are trying to reject election results. We thought this victory would be pretty clear and the people have spoken but of course you know I'm not completely surprised that there is still pushback. The battle might not be completely over yet but I think it was really wonderful to see how much support there is for the initiative and I hope that it continues to pan out for girls. It's just really mentally disheartening and it Feels like it negates all of their effort because boys do have a lot of physical advantages. And then both of my daughters went into the state meet knowing that they would be racing this boy and they both did want to beat him. One of them did, but we also watched the boys race and he would have been last place in that race. And so my girls, I mean, they just knew that it was wrong and unfair, but they were really happy about the initiative. And they hope that Washington State can give girls the fairness and the safety that they deserve, just like the NCAA, the International Olympics Committee. They've already recognized that they need to protect women's sports, but we just need to do it for girls. Now, Phillips, again, says it is simply about fairness for girls. And that's the same argument coming from Gisela Gonzalez, a transgender athlete. Gonzalez graduated high school already, but played sports all throughout her high school years. Gonzalez did play in club sports, not at school specifically. Now, during our interview, Gonzalez talked about how supportive the girl players were on all the teams she played and that it's all about transgender athletes getting the same opportunities and treatment. They clearly haven't talked to a true transgender athlete and that they haven't gone out and educated themselves really that they are ignorant and that they're kind of stupid because I played, I even on my Instagram, I interviewed a girl who I played against in softball and And she, Won against me and she, her team demolished my team and it wasn't softball. They are going to try to pin youth against each other all the time. They're going to try to make this to separate us, but we should really take this opportunity to show them that. Gen Z and every generation after us is we are more together and we are more unified than they know and that we are tired of them trying to segregate all the minorities in schools by attacking one by one. There has been some confusion about how gender would be verified because the initiative now requires a doctor to verify the sex of the athlete. Now the group that drafted the wording on I-638 says it does not require a genital check on anyone. A doctor can use past medical charts and history to check the box and it can be done during a routine physical for all athletes.