Residents across the state of Washington breathed a sigh of relief this week after the passage of Initiative 638 guaranteed girls are finally safe now that they’re required to show an adult their vagina in order to play school sports.
“Thanks to I-638, all my 12-year-old daughter has to do now to be spared the trauma of losing 5th place to a trans girl in track is show her vagina to an adult,” said local father Hank Hanson. “I love that under this new law, not even a birth certificate is enough for a girl to prove her gender because that deprives children of the opportunity to proudly show their reproductive organs to an adult while I stand in the room and watch to add that extra feeling of comfort and safety.”
Girls who play sports from middle school on up thanked the 1.5 million adults who went so out of their way to make minors living in a country run by a pedophile feel that much more seen.
“Nothing makes me feel safer and more excited to play sports quite like being forced to spread my legs for an adult who’s in at least their 30s,” said 13-year-old soccer player Brittney Rigby. “I don’t know why anyone thought passage of this law might deter girls from playing sports at all. What kind of 7th grader isn’t excited to let an adult they don’t know get a good look at her privates? Pretty routine middle school physical stuff, I’ve heard.”
At press time, boys who play school sports were still sadly completely unsafe due to not being forced to show an adult their penises.
Look, I voted no on this, but I do find it a little confusing that basically everyone seems to have forgotten that boys already have to have a doctor touch their balls for a sports physical before they're allowed to play sports. To be fair, it's not for gender verification, but it's still happening.
I'm not gonna pretend I have a good answer or alternate solution here but pretending like this isn't already happening in youth sports doesn't help anyone.
What does boys previously having had to be checked for hernias have to do with girls needing to have their genitals examined?
"We suffered so they should, too"?
No, this is not in any way a 'happened to me so it's ok to happen to you' thing. Just to reiterate, I am a WA resident, I have a daughter, and I voted against this because I think it's dumb at the best and at the very least poorly implemented.
But, just to keep things fair, genital examination is genital examination, regardless of purpose. The point here is that there is precedent for this in sports, which is how our entire system works. Anyone claiming it no longer occurs here is wrong, it's still common practice and usually is only skipped if specifically requested. I don't think this measure is a good idea but it's not like it's something that we've never done before.
This is an insane take. The purpose is like the only thing that matters.
When it's a question of whether a child has a hernia or not, that's a health issue that you want to avoid in sports. I'm not a doctor so I'm not going to even try to defend that as I have no idea how necessary it is. But at least it has a patina of protecting children from further injury.
Being trans isn't a health issue that needs to be checked before play.
The real point here is that having one's genitals checked is a normal part of a physical exam, which most people get once a year. There is no need for the school to have some designated person go through some humiliating ritual to determine their genitalia, just get note from their regular doctor that they are clear to play sports in every way, and it's over. It's probably a good policy anyway, for heart issues, etc.
Have you seen the state of our healthcare system? Not every child has a regular doctor. Not every family can afford to get a DNA test or extra doctor’s visits.
Say a family finds a doctor for their daughter to get the note - how does a doctor that hasn’t seen the daughter before determine sex then?
Annual exams do not require getting naked for a doctor. External genitalia do not determine sex all the time. Ambiguous genitalia is a thing, intersex people exist, etc.
People move, lose insurance, all sorts of situations where they can’t keep the same doctor. What then?
Valid. The fact is, private equity has taken over children's sports, and priced a lot of kids out because their families can't afford it. Here's one more expensive hoop to jump through.
Kids just want to play sports, so of course someone has to exploit that desire for money. "If you want it so bad, you'll pay for it."
Those checks are for hernias, not determining sex, and they no longer perform those hernia checks on all boys. They only do it if there's a risk or symptoms.
I'm aware that it is/was for checking for hernias, which is why I specifically stated that it is not for determination of sex, although I will admit I used gender incorrectly there.
But, just to fairly counter this, while it is technically not required here in the state anymore it is still common practice for sports physicals and is usually still done unless specifically requested otherwise.
I've already replied in another comment with my other points so I won't reiterate them here, but I will point out again that I'm not advocating for this, I'm in opposition of it and voted as such. However, pretending other viewpoints on this issue don't exist or are entirely invalid is why people are failing to understand why a state like Washington would vote rather overwhelmingly for this at all
I’m not pretending other viewpoints don’t exist. I believe those viewpoints are rooted in bigotry and fear of the unknown.
Acting like people don't "understand" imo is just transphobia. Your state shouldn't have voted for bigotry. This shows cis people have failed their end of the social contract.
No more blaming trans people for transphobia period.
Edit: Because I wanted to make the message simpler.
Cis people harm trans people.
It's not that they don't get it, or don't understand, or don't know about it, the reason so much harmful legislation passes marginalizing trans people is because of the oppression by cisgender people.