Washington sports association seeking legal counsel after Trump executive order on trans athletes

OLYMPIA – The governing body of nearly 800 public and private middle and high schools in Washington will wait for additional guidance before potentially implementing a new federal executive order to ban transgender students from competing in women’s and girls sports in K-12 schools.

The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” was signed by President Donald Trump during a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The order directs the federal government to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

The executive order further states the policy of the United States is “to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly.”

During the White House ceremony, Trump said it was his administration’s policy “to defend the proud tradition of female athletes.”

“From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump said.

Trump added Wednesday that schools that violate the executive order could be investigated for violation of Title IX, a wide-ranging federal policy that bans discrimination based on sex in education.

“So, this will effectively end the attack on female athletes at public K-12 schools and virtually all U.S. colleges and universities,” Trump said.

How the law could impact interscholastic sports in Washington, though, remains uncertain.

In an email Wednesday, Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, wrote, “We are repulsed by the president’s dehumanization of the trans community.”

“This and other orders are clearly part of the administration’s larger plan to strip away civil rights across society,” Faulk wrote.

Faulk said the Attorney General’s office is “still looking at this order and are limited in what we can say in terms of providing legal advice or analysis.”

“We recommend WIAA, college-level sports, and other state-level athletic bodies seek advice from their legal counsel about the implications of this EO,” Faulk wrote.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association said Wednesday that “in conjunction with legal review, the interpretation of state law, including how the Association’s gender-identity participation policies align with state law, has yet to change.

“Until the Association sees full language of an executive order and conducts further legal review, its impact on participation in Washington public schools is unknown,” the statement said.

Student-athletes in Washington can participate in programs “consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed,” according to the WIAA’s handbook, although the WIAA’s Representative Assembly will consider two amendments in April directed at the participation of transgender student-athletes in sports.

Under one policy, the girls category would be limited to “students whose biological sex is female,” although student-athletes who meet eligibility criteria could compete in a “boys/open” category. Eligibility to compete in the girls category would be based on an athlete’s assigned sex at birth and could be verified by either an original birth certificate or “an affidavit from a licensed physician.”

A separate proposed amendment would establish an “open division” for athletic competition.

“By designating an open division category for sports, this amendment will preserve the equality of opportunity to participate in athletics while simultaneously creating a delineating category for different genders: boys versus boys; girls versus girls; and transgender versus transgender or transgender versus nonbinary,” the proposed amendment to the WIAA’s handbook states.

The WIAA’s executive assembly includes 53 school administrators from across the state. To pass, an amendment needs 60% support.

In the fall, several Spokane-area school districts adopted resolutions or wrote letters objecting to transgender students participating in girls sports competitions. During an October meeting, members of the Mead School District unanimously adopted a resolution to oppose transgender students competing in girls sports.

“The Mead School District recognizes the inherent biological and physiological differences that exist between male and female students,” the resolution reads. “These differences place male students at an advantage for physical performance in athletic competitions.”

Mead was among the school districts that supported both amendments the WIAA’s representative assembly will consider this spring.

BrieAnne Gray, vice president of the Mead School Board, said Wednesday she was “deeply appreciative to President Trump for protecting our female athletes, both in sports and in the locker room.”

“Fair competition and ensuring equal opportunities for all athletes are paramount, and this executive order upholds those principles,” Gray said. “We will thoroughly review the order and assess how it will impact athletic policies in Washington State.”

During a media availability Wednesday afternoon, Speaker of the House Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, said while staff are still reviewing Trump’s executive order, “Washington’s law against discrimination is pretty explicit.”

“I think we’re looking at, ‘Is there anything that’s necessary beyond that?’ Our law is pretty clear,” Jinkins said. “In Washington state, you cannot discriminate on the basis of gender identity or gender.”

Trump signed three other executive orders directed at transgender people during his first weeks in office, which included directing the federal government to only recognize two genders, banning transgender soldiers from openly serving in the United States military and restricting access to gender-affirming care for those under the age of 19.