Lyric Aquino, Underscore Native News + Report for America and Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore Native News + ICT
Washington state is one of five states — along with Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska — with anti-transgender initiatives on the November ballot. There are two measures on the ballot in Washington that would be consequential for 2SLGBTQIA+ students.
Washington Initiative 638 aims to ban trans girls from girls’ sports, and Washington Initiative 001 would threaten the privacy and safety of 2SLGBTQIA+ students by opening up access to all school records to parents, including medical and mental health records. Opponents of the measure say it could force school staff to out students who may not be accepted at home.
The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, a nonprofit organization representing 57 tribal governments, passed a resolution at its annual September convention opposing both ballot measures.
“Therefore, be it resolved, that ATNI strongly opposes Washington Initiatives I-001 and I-638 and finds that these measures are inconsistent with the Tribes’ commitment to protecting children, strengthening families, and ensuring the well-being of all young people,” the text of the resolution reads.
This is a clear assertion of tribal sovereignty, said Shelby Chestnut, a citizen of the Assiniboine Nation on the Fort Peck Reservation and executive director of the Transgender Law Center.
“It is saying not only are we not standing for hate in our state and in our region, but we’re saying our Two-Spirit and trans community members are valued assets of our community,” Chestnut said.
More anti-trans bills are likely to come in following years, Chestnut told Underscore Native News and ICT, based on the trajectory of this presidential administration. Other opponents of the anti-trans initiatives are also worried that Washington is being used as a blueprint for other states across the country.
For Chestnut, they believe it is important that conversations about trans rights are incorporated into broader conversations about bodily autonomy.
“This is really an attack on all people’s bodily autonomy because it’s not going to stop with them coming for trans kids or trans kids in sports or trans kids access to healthcare,” they said. “It’s going to be as far-reaching as we can imagine, and you will see if we don’t defeat these ballot measures in a variety of states across the country, we will expect them to be more, and we will expect them to be more severe.”
Underscore Native News and ICT spoke with both proponents and opponents of the ballot measures.
A move to ban trans athletes
If passed, Initiative 638 would require verification of “biological sex” for students to participate in girls’ sports. Today, a physical is already required to participate in sports in Washington, but if passed, this initiative would have students be required to obtain a statement signed by a health care provider “that verifies the student’s biological sex, relying only on one or more of the following: The student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
Hallie Herzberg said the initiatives are a “measure to keep boys out of girls’ sports.” Herzberg is director of communications for Let’s Go Washington, the political action committee that helped introduce the two initiatives. The committee was founded by conservative hedge fund founder Brian Heywood.
Underscore Native News and ICT asked Herzberg to clarify if she was talking about trans girls participating in girls sports.
“I don’t know how they identify. Biological males, maybe they would consider themselves to be trans girls. Maybe they aren’t. I’m not sure how they identify, but yeah, that’s what the initiative specifically concerns: biological males and biological females,” Herzberg said.
But many practitioners of modern medicine disagree with using the term “biological sex” when defining a person’s sex. “It is not uncommon for individuals to have atypical combinations of chromosomes, hormones, or anatomy that challenge the binary model of sex assignment,” according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s website. “Such natural variation, which is neither a disease nor a disorder requiring medical intervention, illustrates the complexity of biological sex.”
Underscore Native News and ICT also asked Herzberg what the initiative might mean for intersex students. Intersex is an umbrella term for natural variances in sex traits or reproductive anatomy.
“That’s a really small population of students, but that’s not to say they should be overlooked,” Herzberg said. “I think it all depends specifically on your interaction with your doctor, and they’ll be able to identify which league you should participate in, and that’s the basis of the initiative.”
As many as 2.8 million people over 13-years-old in the United States identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles focused on public policy and law related to sexual orientation and gender identity. More than 5 million people identify as intersex nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association previously shared an estimate that between 5 to 10 student athletes identify as transgender in Washington, according to reporting by KUOW.
When asked to confirm this by Underscore Native News + ICT, Sean Bessette, director of communications for the association, said:
“The WIAA does not maintain a definitive count of participating transgender student-athletes, as transgender students are not identified by state law, therefore no defined quantities exist.”
A group called No Hate In Washington State is leading the opposition to the two initiatives. The campaign says Initiative 638 would not only impact trans girls, but all girls in sports, and potentially lead to less participation in girls’ sports overall.
Emilio Garza, organizing and coalition manager for No Hate In Washington State, said the initiative could “disenfranchise up to 150,000 young people from participating in girls sports across the state.” Many of these students, Garza explained, do not have a primary care physician and so get sports physicals from free school-based or community clinics.
“These types of public and free clinics are not equipped to provide the types of invasive genital exams, nor the types of testing that this initiative would require,” Garza said.
But proponents of the ballot measure with Let’s Go Washington argue that invasive genital exams would not be required, and leave it up to the students’ doctor to determine biological sex.
In the text of the ballot measure, it states that a medical practitioner would be required to confirm biological sex through “the student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
Parental Rights Bill
Initiative 001, titled Restoring the Parent’s Bill of Rights, would allow Washingtonian parents to access all school records of their children (including medical and mental health records), opt out of sexual-health education and review their child’s curriculum, textbooks and supplemental materials.
“In 001, I struggle to see the connection between harm for students and additional information to parents,” Herzberg said. According to her, statutory protections for children who are in abusive situations that currently exist within Washington state schools will continue to exist.
“If the most important thing is student outcomes and student safety and student well being, we fully believe that a parent who is the child’s primary stakeholder and caregiver deserves to have at least access to that information and should at least know what’s going on with their student in the school,” she said.
But opponents of the initiative say this would introduce multiple concerns for student safety, especially putting 2SLGBTQIA+ students at risk of homelessness.
“Many kids in Washington live in homes that are not safe. That includes queer and trans youth living in unsafe conditions who face being kicked out of their homes, or being beaten, or worse, if they are outed by their schools via the disclosure required under 001,” said Nick Allen, policy and advocacy director at Inatai Foundation who endorsed the No Hate In Washington State campaign.
Opponents also say there are concerns that students might withhold information about abuse from teachers and other trusted adults if Washington state voters pass the ballot measure, as well as that educators might have to give sensitive records of students to parents or guardians who may be abusing children.
If the initiative passes, student records could only be withheld from their parent if they are actively being investigated by law enforcement or the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families for a case of child abuse or neglect unless the parent has obtained a court order.
Ballots in Washington state will be mailed out Oct. 16 and election day takes place Nov. 3.
This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Disclosure: Inatai Foundation is a funder of Underscore Native News. Underscore practices editorial independence as a nonprofit news organization.
