147
Why blue WA voted to ban trans athletes from girls sports
(www.seattletimes.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2026
147 points (96.8% liked)
politics
31873 readers
2629 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I can at least understand the opposition argument on this one (unlike most other anti-trans initiatives). To them, a trans girl in highschool is just a boy who decided to call themself a girl. They don't understand what would make someone want to do that - they just see the surface level, and that logically resolves to 'A boy can say they're trans to compete against girls'. I can see where they'd object to that. And purely from a competitiveness standpoint, one could argue that a trans girl who hasn't started any hormone therapy or anything of the sort is, in effect, as physically capable as her male classmates.
And, yes - a boy who just wanted to appear to perform better at sports could in theory do that. It's just that reasonable people tend not to want to pass legislation against an entire class of people because of the potential for a few bad actors. It's like banning N95 masks because someone could wear one to hide their face during a robbery.
But why focus on boys pretending to be girls and not girls pretending to be boys? Doesn't that just point to the underlying misogyny and pedophilic instincts of the people wanting to inspect little girl genitals?
In the context of sports? Because the argument is that testosterone makes boys more physically capable and therefore provides an unfair advantage in sports when they're competing against girls. Since trans boys typically don't have the same levels of testosterone that biological boys do (particularly in high school, where they likely aren't getting hormone therapy or haven't been for long), in their eyes, a trans boy competing in boys' sports would be at a disadvantage.
As a point of interest, in some states, a girl can choose to try out for the boys' team if they want to, but I'm not aware of anywhere with gendered teams where a boy can try out for the girls' team.
You said it better than I did.
Misogyny
Even trans women get classic misogyny.
Good thing that has never fucking happened. Every single league that allows trans women to compete with cis women has always required sufficient time on HRT to erase any advantages a male puberty might have brought.