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What happens when a blue state votes on trans sports?

Four states have midterm ballot measures on the issue. Washington’s would go further than any law in the country.

Republicans have been turning transgender athletes into a wedge issue since Idaho passed the first state ban in 2020. This year, it’s already playing a major role in midterm ads, with Democrats in competitive races almost always on the defensive. At this point, the fight doesn’t even need a trans athlete: The WNBA spent the summer at the center of a culture war over a hypothetical conflict, after two ex-NBA players declared themselves eligible for the women’s draft as a stunt. There have been no known trans women on any team, and the league confirmed it had “no immediate eligibility matters” on its hands.

Twenty-seven Republican-controlled states have imposed measures to restrict trans athletes from playing in girls’ and women’s sports since 2020, but this year is the first time voters will have a chance to weigh in on the question directly.

Washington state’s proposed measure to verify sex assigned at birth would apply to all girls seeking to play sports, not just players whose eligibility has been challenged.

Democrats are split on how loudly to fight it. Washington’s congressional and legislative leaders oppose the measure, while the governor and both US senators have stayed quiet.

It became such a political priority in part because it polls well: Surveys show most Americans, including many otherwise Democratic-leaning voters, favor barring trans women from sports leagues. This November, though, marks the first time voters will confront the issue directly at the ballot box themselves.

Most notably, in Washington state, the public will decide whether to go further than any red-state legislature has even managed. A ballot initiative, I-638, would require every girl who wants to play school sports to first prove their sex assigned at birth, via an inspection of their reproductive anatomy or a test of their sex chromosomes or hormone levels. Competing campaigns in the state are mobilizing voters for and against the measure, which will deliver the clearest test yet of how liberal and moderate voters feel about this issue.

Twenty-seven other states have already imposed measures to restrict trans athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports in recent years, and the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that such bans are constitutional. Yet nearly all of those bans passed through Republican-controlled legislatures, mostly in states Donald Trump won three times, and none went directly before voters. That changes this fall, not only in Washington but also with Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska voters weighing in.

The blue-state ballot battle comes at a time when the Democratic Party is still struggling to figure out how it wants to talk about transgender athletes. Democrats have broadly supported anti-discrimination protections for trans people, but on the specific questions that have dominated the political debate — namely whether trans women and girls should play on sports teams matching their gender identity, and whether minors should have access to gender-related medical treatment — most Democrats have been reluctant to adopt clear positions, while some swing-state candidates have actively distanced themselves from the party.

But the Washington state referendum is forcing its opponents, and allied Democratic politicians, to tackle the issue head-on. And they think they may have found a way to win — by convincing even voters who agree with the ban’s goals that enforcing it will create more problems than it solves.

What’s different about the Washington sports ban

The measure in........

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