For the past 17 years, transgender student-athletes in Washington state have been able to fully participate in sports in a way that is consistent with their gender identity.
That could soon change. A group of 14 school districts has proposed an amendment to the WIAA handbook that would restrict participation in girls sports at the middle-school and high-school levels to students who were assigned female at birth.
A second proposed amendment would create a new “open division,” essentially a new coed division that trans students could participate in. How that division would come together and be run is not discussed in the initial proposals.
The language of the proposals will be finalized by the WIAA’s Representative Assembly, a 53-member body comprised of 35 high-school and 18 middle-school administrators, during a virtual meeting Jan. 27.
The assembly will then vote on the amendments from April 9-18. An amendment needs 60% approval, or 32 yes votes, to pass.
Lynden School District superintendent David VanderYacht is helping to lead the effort to pass the amendments. He called the state’s current gender-identity guidelines “unworkable,” describing the current proposals as “female-forward” and aligning with Title IX’s intent to protect against discrimination and provide equal opportunity for female athletes.
Along with Lynden, the Blaine, Brewster, Cashmere, Colville, Grand Coulee Dam, Lake Chelan, Lynden Christian, Mansfield, Mead, Okanogan, Omak, Oroville and Tonasket school districts signed on to submit the proposal.
The second amendment, creating an open division, was proposed by Eastmont, Cashmere, Colville, Lynden, Mead, Moses Lake and Thorp school districts.
“The adults in leadership positions must have the courage to engage respectfully to find a path forward that upholds fairness and integrity of girls’ sports while honoring the dignity of transgender student-athletes,” VanderYacht said in an email to The Seattle Times. “This has been the spirit of this collaborative effort.”
The proposal comes amid increased discussion nationwide regarding transgender athletes. States such as Washington are operating with more inclusive policies, while states such as Texas have banned transgender students from participating in sports differentially than the gender they were assigned at birth.
Aidan Key, the director of Seattle-based Gender Diversity and author of the book “Trans Children in Today’s Schools,” helped craft the WIAA’s current policy allowing students to participate consistent with their gender identity in 2007, which was one of the first of its kind in the nation.
Key said he doesn’t see a need for the wholesale change that the proposed amendments would bring, adding that the current policy work as intended, and he is open to tweaking it as needed.
“It’s important to acknowledge that it is a newer conversation,” Key said. “We are learning, which means as we learn and as we put steps in place we can reflect on the effectiveness and adjust this. These proposals are not an adjustment. They’re looking to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Okanogan School District Superintendent Steve Quick, who also helped craft the proposed amendment restricting girls sports, said in an email that the proposals would create a more level playing field for female athletes, pointing to cases such as transgender East Valley High School (Spokane) student Verónica Garcia’s victory in the Class 2A 400-meter championship last season, and an instance in which a transgender eighth-grade student won the 1600-meter race at the regional Junior Olympics in Cashmere, as examples of these concerns in action.
Quick said the proposed amendments would still provide transgender students with a place to participate in sports while making a “fair and safe space” for female athletes, a reference to concerns regarding competitive balance and the potential for injury.
“The number of instances where this is occurring is on the rise nationwide,” Quick said in an email. “These results have sparked significant concern among our parents, coaches, athletes, and community, many of whom have expressed that the current system is undermining the fairness and safety of girls’ sports.”
Key said any effort to restrict transgender girls from playing in girls sports is operating from a place of fear, and overstates the impact trans students have on sports.
Trans people represent a tiny fraction of the U.S. population, with one 2022 estimate from UCLA’s Williams Institute placing their numbers at 0.6 percent of people over the age of 13.
“The actual numbers — the numbers of students participating, how they’re doing, their stats at the end of the season, their victories, their losses, that’s not being examined even though that’s pointed to as the greatest source of fear,” Key said. “The apprehension that records will be broken, that cisgender girls will not stand a chance, that there’s something inherently dangerous about it, that’s just from lingering stigma. Not just lingering, but re-stoked efforts to stigmatize further.”
Any hopes for federal guidance this summer were dashed when the U.S. Department of Education indefinitely delayed its ruling, which is expected to provide a framework to colleges and schools for including or excluding transgender students from athletic teams based on their gender identity.
WIAA Executive Director Mick Hoffman said the association’s current policy allowing trans athletes to compete follows the state’s anti-discrimination law.
The policy states that students can participate in sports consistent with their gender identity. Washington’s OSPI office has said that having transgender students participating in girls sports is not a Title IX violation.
Hoffman is cognizant that things could change in light of the recent U.S. presidential election results.
“When the Department of Ed did their most recent review of Title IX, they spoke to a lot of things which have been reported on, but they did not speak to athletic competition. They tabled that,” Hoffman said.
“And we’ve heard campaign promises that that will be addressed. So that’s to be determined, and then that could put federal guidance in conflict with our state law.”
As of now, Hoffman said, the WIAA doesn’t know what state law or federal oversight will say about the issue by the time the proposals would go in effect on Aug. 1, 2025. Without knowing that, the WIAA can’t know whether it would be against state law.
“There’s a lot of unknown,” Hoffman said. “It’s pure speculation of what it will be in April, let alone in August. And so for that reason we need to let the process play out, see what we have. But our attorneys have said, when it comes time to implement it, you should not implement something that is against the law.”
There are other unanswered questions regarding the amendment proposals, such as how they would deal with intersex athletes, and how the WIAA could institute an appeal process that still protects student’s privacy.
Furthermore, how would the state run an open division? Would it mean another state tournament or smaller tournaments across the board? These are questions that the writers of the proposal, namely VanderYacht and outgoing Eastmont superintendent Becky Berg, have until Jan. 27 to figure out.
“I would say anything that’s against the law is going to create some challenges,” Hoffman said. “And then the details of it, we need to know what the proposers want of it since it’s their amendment, of how they see that playing out. So there’s a lot of work, and I know both (VanderYacht) and (Berg) have spoken to the fact that there’s still a lot of work that they need to do to be able to answer those questions when it comes to January.”
As someone who helped craft the current policy all those years ago, Key is confident that the proposed amendments will not be passed.
“I hope to be deeply impressed by the assembly members, and see that they do the right thing,” Key said. “Doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to reflect and assess the policy that’s in place. Why wouldn’t we? If we want to have continued success, we’ve got almost two decades under our belt now. If we want two more, then let’s go ahead and do that. What’s the problem there?”
