My friend Jaelynn Scott, a Black trans socialist, just won a seat in the Washington State House. On the same ballot, Washington voters passed Initiative 638, which makes girls get a healthcare provider to vouch for their sex before they can play certain school sports. One result is worth celebrating. The other is worth fighting.
Washington said yes to Jaelynn. Then it said no to trans girls.
My good friend Jaelynn Scott is headed to Olympia. Voters in the 37th District elected her to the Washington State House, and she will be there as exactly who she is: a Black trans woman and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I could not be prouder of her.
In that same election, voters statewide passed Initiative 638. It bars trans girls from certain girls’ school sports and requires every student who wants to compete in those sports to have a healthcare provider verify her sex first. I have spent the days since sitting with how good one result feels and how ugly the other one is. To understand why the second one matters, you have to look at what it actually asks of a kid, how few kids it was written for, and what it says about a state that also elected my friend.
This is an opinion piece. Every factual claim below is linked to its source at the end.
A sports physical with a sex check attached.
Start with the text. Under I-638, a student who wants to compete in a covered girls-only school sport has to submit a signed statement from her healthcare provider as part of her sports physical. The provider has to base that verification on one or more of three things: reproductive anatomy, genetics, or naturally produced testosterone levels.
Supporters will point out that the initiative does not require a new genital exam for every girl, and that providers may be able to sign using medical information they already have. That’s true. But the law expressly makes reproductive anatomy a basis for deciding whether a kid gets to play, and it leaves open the possibility of an intimate exam for any student whose provider needs more information before signing.
Think about what that means. Washington has written a child’s reproductive anatomy into the paperwork for joining a team. Dressing it up as part of a routine sports physical does not make it any less creepy or weird.
Every girl pays the price.
Picture a middle schooler who wants to run track with her friends. A sports physical makes sense when it’s about whether she can exercise safely. Now the state wants a provider to certify something intimate about her before she can compete. Maybe the provider can sign off using her chart. Maybe her family has to figure out what else the provider needs, find another appointment, or pay for a test. Either way, every girl on the team is subject to the same requirement.
Some families will not have the time, money or patience to sort it out before tryouts. Some kids will decide they would rather skip the season than have that conversation at all. Those kids are not trans girls. They are the girls this law claims to protect.
The scrutiny will not land evenly, either. Think of the girl who develops differently from her classmates, or the girl who already gets called a boy because of how she looks. Girls already put up with plenty of commentary about their bodies. School sports could be one place where they get to care more about what their bodies can do.
A statewide rule aimed at a handful of kids.
Now consider who this law was written for. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association told KUOW it was aware of around ten transgender student athletes statewide in a typical year. The association does not officially track that number, and the estimate covers transgender athletes generally, so it cannot tell us exactly how many trans girls compete on girls’ teams. But it tells us the scale. Washington put a new condition on every girl in covered sports to exclude a group of kids you could fit on a single bench.
I get why a kid who has trained all season cares about where she places. I’d care, too. But a conversation about a particular event, age group or level of competition is miles away from a blanket rule for school sports. I-638 reaches the kid trying out for her first team and the teenager running for a state title alike. It treats trans girls as a problem before any of them has even shown up to practice.
And if we are serious about more girls getting to play, there is real work to do. Can a kid afford the gear? Is there a ride home after practice? Does her school even offer the sport she wants to play? Those questions sound mundane next to a statewide culture war. They matter a hell of a lot to the kid who can’t get home from practice.
What Jaelynn’s win means.
Jaelynn’s win deserves to be celebrated on its own terms. My friend ran for office as a democratic socialist, and her neighbors trusted her with the job. I’m glad they’ll have her in Olympia. There is a real difference between seeing trans people talked about as the subject of a ballot measure and seeing a trans woman elected to make decisions about housing, schools and everything else a state legislature does.
To be fair to the facts: her race was decided by one district, and I-638 went before the whole state. The results cannot tell us how any individual voter came down on both. But the contradiction is real. In the same week, one part of Washington sent a Black trans socialist to Olympia with a mandate to govern, and a statewide majority voted to make it harder for trans girls to take part in ordinary school life. Both things happened, and my pride in my friend does not make the second one any easier to accept.
Let her run.
Go back to that middle schooler. She wants to find out if she’s any good at track. Maybe she’s fast. Maybe she’s terrible. Maybe her favorite part is riding the bus to an away meet with her friends. All of that is hers to figure out, and none of it should start with a provider certifying her body to the state.
And to the voters who backed I-638 because it sounded like fairness: read what it actually asks of every girl in this state. A handful of trans kids was never the threat. Washington showed this week that it can trust a trans woman to govern. It can trust a trans girl to run track.
