Washington Voted to Ban Boys From Girls’ Races. Four Days Later, One Beat 132 Girls at State.

Washington voters passed Initiative 638 on Tuesday to keep biological males out of girls’ school sports. On Saturday, a male runner from Camas High School lined up in the 4A girls’ state cross-country final anyway, and he beat 132 girls.

The official WIAA results put him 23rd of 155 finishers at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco, in 18:53.90. The girl right behind him, a junior from Ferris, crossed six-tenths of a second later. Every girl from 24th place to 155th finished one spot lower than she would have without him.

For scale: the same runner opened this season on Sept. 5 in a boys’ junior varsity race, where he finished 76th in 23:10, according to The Seattle Times. Ten days later he was racing girls. Two months later he was leading the Camas girls at state.

How could this happen after the vote? Because a new initiative in Washington doesn’t take effect until 30 days after the election. Until Dec. 3, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s gender-identity policy, on the books since 2008, still rules. Saturday was one of the last races where it did.

What the official results show

Seven spots off the podium. Medals go to the top 16. He finished 23rd, which kept him off the stand, but his time still landed ahead of 85% of the field.

He carried his team there. Camas came to state as a team, and its male runner was its No. 1 scorer, worth 15 of the team’s 234 points. Camas finished 12th of 16 schools. At the Oct. 31 regional, where he placed seventh, OutKick reported that Camas’s points pushed Puyallup to eighth, one spot out of the seven team qualifying places.

A girl sued to get in. The Seattle Times reported that the parents of the girl who finished 50th at that regional, one place out of the 49 individual state spots, sued the WIAA and the state schools office (OSPI) in the days before the race. A judge denied their request for a temporary restraining order to add one extra entry “to provide equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes.” The suit is still going.

The girls who ran anyway

Eastmont junior Ahnaleigh Wilson is the girl Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton cursed out at a WNBA game in July for holding a sign thanking Sophie Cunningham “For Speaking Up For Girls,” as OutKick reported. More than two years ago, she finished second to a trans athlete in a Junior Olympic race. Saturday she raced the boy again, on a bone stress injury in her right fibula.

“I worked really hard this season, and I mean, I like running. So I wanted to run. I wanted to try at least,” Wilson told OutKick’s Matt Calkins. She finished 150th in 22:58.30, about three and a half minutes slower than her usual 19:30. “There were a few times I didn’t know if I was going to finish,” she said, but strangers who knew her name kept cheering.

Skyview junior Charlie Garrett, who walked off a start line in protest last month, finished 39th. “I don’t want my spot to be taken away by someone who shouldn’t be in my race,” she told OutKick. Kamiakin sophomore Lauren Baumann finished 34th, 11 places behind him: “When he passed me at the 800 and I tried to stay with him but couldn’t, it made me feel really really mad.”

Outside the course, a mom and dad with a daughter in the race told independent reporter C.K. Bouferrache what a lot of parents there were thinking.

What I-638 does, and when

The initiative’s text orders school districts and leagues like the WIAA to “prohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students” in sports meant only for girls. Girls who want to play turn in a statement from their own health care provider verifying their sex, and the measure says the routine sports physical students already get is how that happens.

Voters didn’t squeak it through. More than 1.5 million Washingtonians voted yes, about 56%, in a state where Democrats won almost everything else on the same ballot.

The WIAA says it’s ready. “The WIAA office will have all necessary changes in place by December 3, 2026,” communications director Sean Bessette told The Seattle Times. Details, “including updates to requirements with physicals, are undergoing legal review.” What the WIAA hasn’t said is what happens in the two and a half weeks between the start of winter sports in mid-November and Dec. 3.

The lawyers are already circling

The ACLU of Washington called the vote “a devastating blow” and said it “will explore all potential next steps.” Gender Justice League director Danni Askini told KUOW her group may sue on privacy grounds under the state constitution.

That fight runs into the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, in West Virginia v. B.P.J., six justices upheld state laws keeping males off girls’ teams and left the policy “to the people.” Washington’s people just answered. If someone sues, the state attorney general’s office is required to defend the initiative, a spokesperson told The Seattle Times.

Bottom line: 1.5 million voters drew the line Tuesday. Saturday, 132 girls still finished behind a boy. Dec. 3 is when Washington finds out whether its own officials, and its courts, let the voters win.