Washington State’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal claimed last week that it was “inaccurate” to say that there are only two genders.
“We have a civil rights framework in this state. It includes trans youth,” Reykdal said. “This is a biological question. It is quite simply inaccurate to say, biologically, that there are only boys and there are only girls.”
“There’s a continuum. There’s a science to this. There are children who are born intersex. There are children whose chromosomes and their hormones are not consistent with their sex at birth,” he continued. “That’s not a debate we’re going to have today,” Reykdal continued. “I just want to remind you of our civil rights obligations. Our state laws make clear that children get to identify and participate based on the gender in which they identify. We’re going to uphold that law.”
Washington state has vowed to fight against President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting biological men from participating in women’s sports.
“We are working closely with the Attorney General’s Office to understand the next steps for our state and for our school districts in response to this unlawful order,” Reykdal’s office recently declared. “One thing is clear: The 47th President of the United States is disregarding the rule of law by attempting to unilaterally impose an attack on the specific student groups that anti-discrimination laws aim to protect.”
According to the superintendent’s office, Trump’s order “directly contradicts state law, including the Washington Law Against Discrimination, and our laws prohibiting discrimination in our public schools. Our state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and we will not back down from that.”
