John Braun: Legislators must preserve fair competition in girls’ sports
Friday, August 8, 2025
Should biological boys play in girls’ high school sports? Of the Thurston County residents responding to that question in a recent poll, 84% voted no.
You wonder how the remaining 16% would reply if asked about biological boys being in girls’ locker rooms.
There was a time when no one would have thought to ask either question — but today these exemplify how Republicans and Democrats have different priorities.
At the Capitol earlier this year, Republicans proposed legislation to preserve fair competition in girls’ interscholastic athletic activities.
Democrats countered with an effort to give biological male students the legal right to take athletic opportunities away from girls. It was part of a broader, ultra-progressive bill that was both anti-girl and anti-parent.
Let’s take them one at a time.
Republicans’ fair-competition legislation, Senate Bill 5097, was filed before Christmas. That was well before the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the state’s governing body for high school sports, announced it would consider a rule amendment limiting participation in girls’ sports to biological females.
February would bring the federal order about keeping men out of women’s sports, and the Tumwater School District’s decision to join the list of districts opposed to biological boys in girls’ sports.
However, fear of a lawsuit led the WIAA to downgrade the biological-females-only amendment to an advisory vote. It fell just short of the 60% needed for approval. Now that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has made a policy change to protect women’s events, let’s see if the WIAA amendment comes back.
In the meantime, Senate Bill 5097 would simply require the governing body for interscholastic athletics to adopt competitiveness rules. They would be designed to create and foster opportunities for fair competition in girls' athletics.
Notably, the new rules would allow for excluding competitors if “endocrine characteristics” gave them an unfair advantage Also, age-appropriate sampling for relevant hormone levels would be allowed to determine whether a student-athlete could have an unfair competitive advantage or pose a safety risk in a girls' event.
The Republican fair-competition bill was referred to the Senate committee on K-12 education, then ignored.
The Democrats’ anti-girl legislation is Senate Bill 5180, filed weeks after the Republican bill. It was seen largely as an attempt to undermine the parental-rights law created by Initiative 2081, through language that would prevent parents from being informed about what their children are doing at school.
However, SB 5180 also would have taken the question of boys playing girls’ sports out of the WIAA’s hands. That would mean no reconsidering the pro-girl amendment that narrowly failed.
As for locker-room privacy, the Democrats’ bill also would not only guarantee that biological boys can compete in girls’ sports — they would gain the legal right to use the girls’ restroom. How many locker rooms have you seen that don’t also function as a restroom?
Democrats ended up holding SB 5180 and instead undermined the parental-rights law by passing a House bill. They had one more chance to show support for girls’ sports, through Senate Resolution 8647.
Republican Sen. Judy Warnick, prime sponsor of the fair-competition bill, had also proposed SR 8647 to recognize the “profound and lasting” benefit of what’s commonly known as Title IX.
Title IX is the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. It is widely credited with the huge increase in the number of female athletes at the high-school and collegiate levels.
Republicans’ SR 8647 also would have honored “the contributions of female athletes across the United States who have inspired generations of young girls to pursue their dreams in sports and beyond.”
Unbelievably, Senate Democrat leaders said the resolution was too controversial and refused to let the full Senate consider it.
It’s ironic how the King County Democratic senator who ignored the Republican fair-competition bill this year, as chair of the education committee, had also prime-sponsored the legislation establishing the Washington State Women’s Commission.
That was in 2018, after the so-called #MeToo movement went viral. The bill noted how “a disproportionate number of women find themselves disadvantaged or isolated from the benefits of equal opportunity.”
Why would Democrats pass that bill seven years ago but now seek to put all female Washington high-school athletes at a permanent disadvantage?
Those testifying against SB 5180 at its public hearing included a Chehalis 10th-grader who competes in basketball and track.
The dominance of biological boys in girls’ events is undeniable, she said, before finishing with this powerful statement: “Women’s sports exist so girls like me can be given equality. This is about fairness and women’s rights. So don’t say you empower young women if your rules won’t protect our opportunities.”
Washington girls deserve the opportunity to compete fairly. The majority is on the wrong side of this defining issue. We must do better.
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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.