A lawmaker in Washington on Thursday likened legislation aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in the state to racial segregation in the United States, arguing that those across the aisle are “making a lot of the same arguments today.”
Washington Democratic state Rep. Kristine Reeves spoke during an executive session of the House Education Committee on Thursday morning where members of the committee introduced SB 5123, a bill that aimed to expand protections for students, including gender expression and gender identity.
“I recall a time in our country’s history not that long ago … where people like my grandfather were told that they could not participate in sporting activities because he was Black man,” Reeves spoke following a proposed amendment to the bill.
“I can recall a time in our country’s history, Madam Chair, where people like my grandfather and my great-great grandfather were not allowed to participate in processes and places in our society because of the color of their skin because people for years – for generations – had told our society that Black people were less than human, that Black people were animals, that Black people did not have the brain capacity to compete with White Americans.”
Reeves claimed that similar to the scientific studies provided that have argued an unfair physical advantage for trans athletes in women’s sports, people also “generated science to compel people to believe in the argument that my father, my grandfather, my grandmother, my great grandparents were less-than in our society.”
“We are repeating history, Madam Speaker, in this debate and it is very, very scary to me that we are making a lot of the same arguments today about this subset of our population that my grandfather, my grandmother and my grandparents had to be subjected to for years, being told that they were less-than, that they didn’t deserve the same rights as other people because of the color of their skin.”
“This particular amendment is focused on athletic participation and one thing that doesn’t change is bone density, lung capacity, and the ability that a male has versus a female,” Rep. Michael Keaton countered. “There’s been too many stories already this year of females being hurt, or females working their entire life to accomplish a goal and to be able to be successful in something, dedicate their life to it, and then a male changes categories and takes it all away from them.”
Rep. Travis Couture echoed that sentiment, adding that the bill amendment “isn’t about the black-eye in history of our race relations.”
“I don’t view it as evolving,actually, ” he added. “I don’t think it’s a disingenuous argument from me or my side to say that our opinion of it is that we’re actually devolving from a time before Title IX, a time before women had rights in this country, a time before girls could actually go and compete in sports with other girls without having to risk being hurt or having scholastic or other opportunities robbed from them.”
“We’re going backwards in history, not forwards.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month that required entities that receive federal funding to align with Title IX, which the Trump administration changed last month to recognize protections on the basis of biological sex – undoing former President Joe Biden’s 2024 rewrite.
The Trump administration has keyed in on several states that have openly refused to comply, prompting federal funding to be pulled. Most notably, the administration paused $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania after the Department of Education launched an investigation into the university over potential Title IX violations.
The pause in funding was not a direct result of the investigation, meaning the Ivy League school could stand to lose more in federal funding.
On the state level, Maine officials have been the most outspoken over the refusal to comply with the federal law, resulting in a back-and-forth between the state and the Trump administration.
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