sports are some sacred thing whose purity must be protected

With that framing, I agree. But that's a strawman. Most people don't care for the romantic vision of a "pure" sport but rather, the general idea of keeping sports fair for kids. 1/2 the rules in all sports are about keeping things fair. Age buckets, weight ranges, gender, a system of leagues (ex varisty vs JV) to sort players on skill level, and so on.

So if you assume that there are biological differences between men and women that affect fairness within a competitive sport and if you feel those differences largely do not go away until after some form of medical transition and if you think sports are important in kids lives & keeping them fair is important - then you vote the way blue WA did.

But beyond and aside from that, I will never understand why we have to act like sports are some sacred thing whose purity must be protected. It’s people playing with a ball.

Because you're not thinking big enough. The "trans sports" debate is literally just bigotry. Seriously, go watch the John Oliver piece on it. Every study that has ever been done has found that any advantage trans women and girls have disappears after a few years of hormone therapy. The athletic performance of trans women is well within the range of that of cis women. Believing trans women should be banned from women's sports because they have an unfair advantage has no more scientific validity to it than the old racist beliefs that black athletes couldn't compete fairly in white leagues. The science has been. The studies have been performed. Cis people just refuse to believe them. Their gut feelings outweigh science and our humanity.

People just vote based on bigotry. Even most liberal "allies" are awful at this. Most liberal allies just see trans women as drag queens, literal men in dresses, as if we don't take medications that completely reshape our bodies on a biochemical level. Morons, even many moronic Democrats, just think "trans woman == man in dress," and conclude that our sports performance must be closer to cis men than cis women. It's just stereotypes and bigotry. That's all this is.

And that's the problem. Because once you've given into one form of irrational, unscientific bigotry, you have no reason to ever stop. If you won't listen to the science when bigots say trans women have an unfair advantage in sports, you won't listen to science when bigots say that trans women are a threat in women's restrooms and locker rooms. If you don't give a shit about science, you'll have no problem caving to bigots who hand wring about trans kids receiving trans healthcare. It's completely unscientific and bigoted to let a tiny minuscule regret rate influence your conclusion, but if you've abandoned science once, you'll do it again.

As a trans person, I honestly do not give two shits about sports. But what I DO care about is the precedent it sets. There has never been a state that passed a trans sports ban through its legislature that then didn't also go on to persecute trans people in numerous areas of life.

Think more than two seconds into the future.

Remember, Jim Crow was passed because white women didn't "feel comfortable" sharing spaces with black women.

Agreed, even if trans people absolutely dominated in every sport they participated in, why does the government need to be involved beyond prohibiting discrimination? Let the various sports organizations determine the best way for everyone to be able to participate fairly. It certainly shouldn't be a top issue with all the other problems in the world.

I don't understand why we even have men and women leagues. Make an A league, a B league and a C league. If A League is 90% men for most sports and C league 90% women, so be it.

There are "biological" women who crush their respective sports and I don't know why they are viewed differently than a trans women who does the same.