A coalition of advocacy groups are preparing to mount a legal challenge against a Washington state ballot initiative that bans transgender girls’ participation in girls’ school sports, which voters approved in last week’s midterm election and will go into effect next month.
The challenge is poised to set off a protracted legal battle over the rights of trans youth in Washington, which has functioned as a safe haven for thousands of trans people fleeing states that have enacted anti-trans laws in recent years.
If enforced, the ballot measure, Initiative 638, would be “the most extreme” trans sports ban of its kind, according to its opponents. The initiative’s official text says it would require all girls participating in school sports to “verify biological sex”, which could include confirming their “reproductive anatomy”.
At some point in America, we all decided that gay people were OK. That’s the mainstream, that’s the norm. Bigots had to find a new target because they need an enemy and they need that enemy to be widely despised and feared.
At the same time, queer advocates and allies are pushing radical ideas like recognizing trans people as human. This aggravates people because trans people today occupy the space gay people had in in the 90s. They’re widely despised and loathed and are only represented in pop culture as a punchline. People would rather not think about them and they’re willing to legislate their comfort.
Speaking as a reformed bigot, I had a hard time with trans acceptance. Trans acceptance is not just changing how you think and feel about trans people, you have to challenge what you think you know about gender; you have to think of yourself and all humanity differently.
But people like me can come around. And I believe that one day relatively soon, trans acceptance will be normal and mainstream.
May I ask what changed your mind?
How the hell did THAT pass??
Transphobia? A lot of Dems are transphobic, just look how many were happy to throw trans people to the wolves these last few months. The midterms were about rejecting the Republicans other policies that hurt the average voter.
In Truth WA is a very small, singular concentration of a huge number of mega progessives and then surrounded by a soup of the most conservative, religious, ‘abortion is murder’ billboard having, Jesus wasteland conservatives.
And yeah, even in the mega progressive areas we have a disgusting number of Cybertrucks. If nothing else it’s a great example of how the battle never stops.
If you look at the breakdown by county, Seattle and Tacoma were of course largely against it. But the rural areas voted “For,” and unfortunately Spokane and Olympia sided with the rural voters.
I’m confident it will be struck down in court, because it’s very problematic from a legal/constitutional standpoint. It’ll just take some good attorneys, so consider donating to any civil sector orgs that are gearing up to fight it in court.
The amount of flak I got for talking about this; Colorado, Arizona, and South Carolini’s anti🏳️⚧️ legislation should be grounds to make instance defederations.
For those who don’t know their history and think the PNW is just Seattle and Portland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_black_exclusion_laws
(Note that Oregon Territory included both the modern states of Oregon and Washington.)
Good point. The Northwest Territorial Imperative was a thing, and those idiots are still up there.
