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Something happened in Camas this week that was unsurprisingly bleak and yet also inspiringly hopeful.
The story is the now all-too familiar tale of a boy competing in a girls’ sport, taking medals and places from hardworking young women, an issue before voters this year with Initiative 638.
In this case, it was male high school junior competing on the girls squad. A month ago he was competing in boys races, taking 76th place in a Sept. 5 junior varsity race.
On Oct. 10, under the thin guise of she/her pronouns, he competed as a girl in an elite invitational race that draws the top female runners from across the Northwest and Alaska. He was the second-fastest Camas “female” runner and took 39th overall, The Columbian reports.
Males competing as and against females has become so commonplace that it hardly merits a mention anymore. The website SheWon.org documents 3,604 female athletes cheated of 5,172 medals by males competing against them in 2,153 competitions over 53 different sports, most of them in the last half-dozen years.
HeCheated.org lists 700-plus female sports records broken and stolen by males.
Here in Washington state, a male from East Valley in Spokane twice won the girls Class 2A 400-meter state title in 2024 and 2025.
Washington state law, misguided but iron-clad, requires that boys be allowed to compete as girls if they merely “identify” as such.
In a more clear-headed society, people would shake their head in puzzlement at such an idea before rejecting it quickly and moving on with their lives. It would never be allowed, let alone mandated by ideologically driven, biologically mistaken state law.
That’s the bleak part of the story. But let’s get to the inspiring part.
In this case, girls of courage and conviction are standing up for truth and standing strong for common sense. They refuse to be bullied and taken advantage of.
More than half of the Camas girls team — 13 of the 24 cross-country runners who took the starting line that day — refused to compete in their most recent race on Tuesday. They walked for the first 50 meters of the course, some with arms linked in solidarity, before leaving the race in protest. Another five girls from the Battle Ground team also refused to compete.
It’s the picture of bravery and speaking truth to power. They are like the instinctively wise children in fables and folk tales who say what no one else dares: that the emperor has no clothes.
These girls were absolutely right to reject a corrupted and rigged competition.
But they shouldn’t ever have been put in this situation.
They shouldn’t have to forfeit a match and endure the harsh glare of the national spotlight. It’s time for adults to stand up for them. Girls and women should never be forced to compete against males. It’s unfair and in many instances it’s downright unsafe.
It made me think of a basketball match in early 2025 that I happen to catch on one of the prep streaming services.
Tumwater girls were playing Shelton. Partway into the match, an 18-year-old man came on the court for Shelton.
Several times he knocked the teenaged girls he was blocking to the ground.
One girl on the Tumwater squad limped off the court after repeated hits from him within only the four and a half minutes he played. The first time he knocked her down, she popped up in defiance. The final time, she had to be helped off the court, leaving the game doubled over in what was clearly excruciating pain.
Earlier this year, high school girls and coaches from across Washington spoke clearly and forcefully at a legislative listening session on protecting women’s sports.
Among them were two sisters attending W.F. West High School, Joy and Drees Cushman. They spoke simple truths that our state leaders and the dominant culture don’t want to hear.
“I was the league champion in the women’s 800 meter race,” Joy Cushman said. “If I had raced in the men’s division, I would have finished dead last.”
After that legislative hearing in Olympia, the Cushman girls rushed back to Chehalis. They had a basketball game that night.
I happened to be in the bleachers that evening and watched a remarkable transformation. An hour earlier, these girls had been poised behind microphones in a packed legislative room, on the front lines of culture battles that adults feared to fight.
And now here they were, kids again, playing ball the best way they knew how on an even playing field, girls competing against girls.
That’s childhood. That’s fairness. That goodness. That’s what we need to protect.
Ballots arriving this week give us the chance to do that.
Initiative 638 protects girls in sports.
It’s an easy yes. Our girls are fighting for their rights. Let’s stand with them and vote yes for I-638 to protect our young women and their chance to compete fairly and safely.
•••
Among the more active attack lines against I-638 in the final days of the campaign is its requirement for a medical certification that those competing in girls sports actually are girls. Opponents are leaning hard on false claims that the initiative requires invasive genital examinations.
Dr. Erica Li, a board-certified physician, wrote a helpful rebuttal to this claim in a Chronicle op-ed this July, “The truth about sex verification for K-12 student athletes.” It’s worth a read.
As a male who played high school sports, I also have to note that our annual sports physicals involved a hernia check that we boys did not enjoy, but that we understood to be part of the deal.
Fortunately, under this initiative, doctors will have multiple ways to certify that girls playing sports actually are girls.
And although some people like to make the issue of sex and gender complicated, in our hearts most of us know that telling the difference between boys and girls is as natural as our desire for truth and fair play. I-638 protects them all.
Brian Mittge is a community enthusiast who has written for The Chronicle since 2000 as a reporter, editor and columnist. He can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
