I think most people just are very confused about the idea of transgenderism and what it actually means, both to those who are transgender and for everyone else.

And the answer to this? Education.

I wasn't eligible to vote for 638, but this nuanced take does a good job of describing around where I am. I'd prefer trans people are validated and can exist in society without fear or issue. Affirming care should be accessible and stigma-less

I also think natural testosterone production is a crazy-good steroid that improves muscular development. I'm not on board at all with the "checking under skirts" requirements of the bill but just feel uneasy with the nominal advantage of male puberty and it's impact on women's sports. This may get called ignorant, but until I'm asked for it, my opinion doesn't matter at all, so I have some time. And I'm only chiming in here to add credence to rentlar's take.

It's an effective wedge issue, I'm glad that it mostly didn't work as such, and it sucks that WA folks are going to be subject to the 638

I can at least understand the opposition argument on this one (unlike most other anti-trans initiatives). To them, a trans girl in highschool is just a boy who decided to call themself a girl. They don't understand what would make someone want to do that - they just see the surface level, and that logically resolves to 'A boy can say they're trans to compete against girls'. I can see where they'd object to that. And purely from a competitiveness standpoint, one could argue that a trans girl who hasn't started any hormone therapy or anything of the sort is, in effect, as physically capable as her male classmates.

And, yes - a boy who just wanted to appear to perform better at sports could in theory do that. It's just that reasonable people tend not to want to pass legislation against an entire class of people because of the potential for a few bad actors. It's like banning N95 masks because someone could wear one to hide their face during a robbery.

I think many "normies" do not even have a good idea, what transpeople really are. They hear "trans" and "boys in girls' sports", and they are imagining a burly transvestite caricature with stubble wresting little girls, and not a twink femboy playing basketball.

I believe the estimate was 5-10 in the entire state. It's simply more American culture war shite.

Trans rights are human rights and fuck anyone who disagrees.

I honestly dont know, but when I was in school boys got physicals to play sports. It was half the reason I didnt want to play school related sports. Did girls not have to do a similar thing? I'm not really sure why sports medicine has always felt sort of fucked up.

Well, one obvious reason is transphobia and let's not pretend that wasn't the motivation for some voters. But the other reason for some is backlash. They see local schools and sport clubs that try to decide this on their own be accused of transphobia and pressured by loud minorities into a different decision, so they want to protect the communities from this harassment with state level rules, since small groups like schools are much easier to bully compared to the state.

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.

Not even if gone through puberty and jidt has a bigger frame over all? The other thing I could see happening cause people love to chest is go off blockers till closet to the event.

Forum users are famously bad at discussing nuanced topics. Anything that requires more thought than brainlessly taking the polarized stance leads to infighting.

I doubt you’d have enough kids to play in many categories. To super tall kid or the hefty kid are just SOL because you’d need a full team for them, and none exist.

The reason it works in wrestling is because that’s two people, total. You just need to find two people, one from either side, and you’re good to go. And either side can agree to fight outside their weight class.

But you’re never going to manage to do that with a full basketball league for instance, it just isn’t going to happen.

Bring back intramural sports. You know, for fun, not so you can maybe get a scholarship.

If private equity hadn’t weaseled its way into all levels of kid’s sports and turned it into a way to become a millionaire people would have less of a problem about it.

If you put weight classes on everything and remove women's sports, at the same weight men are generally far more capable due to sex based differences. Women won't be winning much anymore

Sex != Gender

But gender is also a protected class.

So gender discrimination

Looks like you have unfortunately found people on "The Good Side" who are not open to nuanced conversations and live in perpetual echo chambers/cognitive dissonance

What, exactly, are non-bigoted reasons you could oppose trans athletes specifically in girls sports?

There really isn't a good reason except bigotry. The science is firm on this. Trans women are biologically female and have no advantage in sports over cis women.

Your problem is that you're stuck on a bigoted assumption that "trans woman == man in a dress."

This would hold some validity in contact sports, much less so in all the other sports. I wouldn't be concerned about my kid's welfare in a swimming competition, for instance.

But that requires nuance.

First: part of the point of sports in secondary education is team building. Not every kid wants to play football, as much as they want to play football in their school team with their friends and classmates.

Second, most schools do not have the populations to support more than a handful of teams for the most popular sports, and a single team for less popular sports. This could work for individual sports, like track or swimming, but basketball and baseball might struggle.

Third: where do you draw the lines? This is a solvable question if Informed by the first 2, but it raises blood pressure.

I have no personal stake in this. I didn't know I was trans in school. I when I played sports, I played on the boys teams. But the question I come back to is: are trans girls......girls?

If they are, what is the problem? We don't ban tall girls from girls basketball. We don't ban strong girls from girls wrestling. We celebrate them. Should Michael phelps have his medals revoked because he clearly has natural advantages in swimming?

The whole controversy is only a controversy if you don't actually think we are the gender we say we are.

So you'd vote for mandatory genital inspections for girls? Because thats what this vote did.

Your daughter wouldn't be playing with boys. She would be playing with trans girls who have undergone the same estrogen-dominated puberty she did. Have you seen some of these protests? You have dozens of adults screaming at a trans high school girl who you couldn't even pick out of the lineup as "the trans one" without it being pointed out in advance. Imagine a regular girls team, except there are a dozen parents screaming at this one random girl who looks no different and plays no different from her peers. But these monsters believe she is forever cursed with the stain of masculinity, thus she must be destroyed.

Well, it's not much of a conspiracy, it happened in plain sight.

People absolutely voted how they feel. They feel poorly about trans people, and voted accordingly.