Washington state school district bans boys from girls’ sports after 15-year-old refuses to play basketball against team with trans player

Last month, a civil rights complaint was filed with the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on behalf of a teenage girl in the district who was allegedly punished for refusing to play a basketball game against a boy who identified as a girl. The complaint alleged that the district is investigating 15-year-old Frances Staudt for "misgendering" her opponent and violating the district's policies against bullying and harassment. Before the game, Staudt asked the school's principal and athletic director if the opposing player was a biological male—that was the "misgendering." After it was confirmed, and her pleas to have the player removed were denied, Staudt benched herself from the game.

Staudt told the [un]Divided podcast with Brandie Kruse, "I've had threats made. I've had people telling me I'm going to hell. I've had people saying, ‘Good luck having any future after this’ and saying, ‘I know all the people who are reporting your account are happy to see your downfall, and know that it’s going to be a real rough time for you in your future because of your decision to post this.'"

Several days later, Kruse interviewed Andi Rooks, the biological male who identified as a female, who said he wouldn’t have played if he knew about Staudt's concerns. "I've never had an issue until this game, and my goal was never to make anybody uncomfortable in any way, and I didn't even realize Frances had an issue until I got yelled at at the game. "If she had had a conversation with me before the game, I would have sat out. My last thing I want to do is make anybody uncomfortable."

Currently, Washington's high school athletes are allowed to compete based on their gender identity. However, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the agency that governs sports in Washington, announced a proposal to create a separate open division for transgender athletes to compete in. The Tumwater School Board voted to support the proposal.

Last month, Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said, "It is quite simply inaccurate to say, biologically, that there are only boys and there are only girls. There's a continuum. There's a science to this. There are children who are born intersex. There are children whose hormones and whose chromosomes are not consistent with their sex at birth. Our state laws make clear that children get to identify and participate based on the gender in which they identify. We're going to uphold that law."

Reykdal admitted that Congress has the power to issue a ban on boys in girls’ sports but said Trump doesn’t. The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act already passed in the House of Representatives but hasn’t been voted on in the Senate yet.

After Trump signed the executive order banning boys from girls' sports, spokesperson for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said, “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.”