I-638 Takes Aim at Girls in School Sports

October 21, 2026 - 7:00 am

"Basketball hoop" by Steve A Johnson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Jennie Cecil Moore, KBCS contributor

Heather, a mom from the Seattle area, says basketball is a huge part of her daughter’s identity. “She loves working hard.  She loves being part of a team. She loves the camaraderie and the ways that it’s both physical and mental.” (We’re withholding her last name for her privacy).

Heather’s daughter started playing basketball seriously in middle school.  Now 16 years old and in 11th grade, she and her teammates are potentially facing a policy that would force all girls statewide to undergo an invasive exam to play school sports.

Initiative 638 is on the November midterm ballots that were recently mailed out to voters. It asks voters to decide whether girls — but not boys — who want to play sports in Washington will have to get medical verification. This is an effort to prevent a small number of transgender girls from participating in school sports. Initiative 638 would be one of the most extreme trans sports bans nationwide. 

Heather’s daughter wrote an Op-ed in The Stranger against Initiative 638, in which she argues that “I-638 will discourage thousands of girls from participating in school sports, impacting the future of Washington girls’ sports for years to come. That’s the real danger to me and my teammates.” 

Let’s Go Washington is behind the initiative. It’s a conservative political action committee founded and funded by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood. They’re also behind two other statewide initiatives: I-645 to repeal the millionaires tax and I-001 to change parental access to school records.

Opponents of I-638 say that it’s ambiguous and discriminatory. The text of the initiative says girls who want to play sports in Washington would need a health care provider to verify their “biological sex, relying only on the student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”

There is no scientific consensus around what biological sex means, and it’s not defined in the initiative. Opponents are concerned that an exam of “reproductive anatomy” creates more risk for female athletes to be abused. 

Lauren Hipp is working on the No Hate campaign against this initiative. She is national director for early learning with MomsRising, a national grassroots organization that works for economic security for families.

“It’s very unclear and unspecific in the way that it is written in terms of who would be doing these invasive genital exams for girls,” says Hipp. “And it’s also unclear on what cadence and what setting is acceptable.  It also makes a lot of assumptions.  It makes assumptions that kids have access to a trusted healthcare provider that they can go to.  It makes assumptions that kids have  insurance coverage that would ensure that it would cover these types of requirements.  And I think makes a sweeping statement about the value of girls and women and their own ability to have bodily autonomy and self-determination over their own identity.” 

Twenty-seven other states have banned trans youth from playing sports since 2020. But only three states require a physical exam as part of their bans, according to the Trans Journalists Association.  

Hipp says the tone of initiative 638 tracks with other right-wing policies nationwide that aim to exclude trans people from public life. 

“They have an agenda about making people afraid and of trying to marginalize and harm a group of people. They tried on bathroom bills and  really were not successful and have come back. And this is the flavor of the week to create a lot of fear around trans girls under the guise of trying to protect girls.”  

Heather, the athlete’s mom,  is a perinatal nurse and mental health advocate. For her, this issue is personal. 

“My whole career, I’ve worked taking care of patients when they’re giving birth and postpartum, and that’s all based on safety,” says Heather.  “It’s based on privacy.  It’s based on trust, and it’s based on consent.  And so this initiative just really hits me in the gut that we are putting our vulnerable kids at risk, asking to check out their bodies.  In a way that’s not needed.  All we need to know is can kids run?  Is their heart working well?  Are their lungs working well?  Have they had a concussion?  So and when I started to look more into this initiative, I realized it’s a further erosion of a privacy for girls, for young women that is already happening as we know at a national level of government oversight into their bodies.” 

As for Heather’s daughter, she’s focused on the powerful connections she’s built with teammates. Heather shared more from her daughter’s op-ed in the Stranger:

“My basketball teammates are my sisters. We laugh, pick each other up, disagree sometimes and support each other through challenges. They’ve taught me how to resolve conflicts, overcome frustration, and put my own ego aside for the sake of the team. Excluding trans girls from the benefits of friendship and teamwork only makes things worse for a small group of kids who already face higher violence and rates of suicide.” 

Election day is November 3. You can put your ballot in a drop box near you, or if you plan to mail your ballot, election officials recommend you do so by Tuesday, October 27.  Learn more at VoteWa.gov.