A Washington state school district has taken matters into its own hands after the blue state refused to comply with President Donald Trump’s recent “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order.
The Tumwater School District’s board of directors voted Thursday to ban trans girls from playing for girls’ sports teams. The resolution passed by a vote of 3-1.
Board member Jill Adams abstained but addressed Trump’s executive order banning transgender females from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
“A lot of us may disagree with the executive order, but us as school board members are caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Adams. “I support different viewpoints, I support different ways of living but it’s tough. I’m caught between, not a rock, but a boulder and a hard surface.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
After the resolution passed, disruptive protesters erupted at the district office, resulting in the remainder of the meeting being canceled, per KING 5 News.
Washington is one of the many Democrat-run states that has allowed trans athletes to play after Trump’s executive order, prompting national backlash after a widely publicized incident involving a trans athlete.
A civil rights complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on behalf of a teenage girl in Washington state who was allegedly punished for refusing to play a basketball game against a trans athlete.
The complaint alleged that the Tumwater School District in Washington is currently investigating 15-year-old Frances Staudt for “misgendering” the opponent and violating the district’s policies against bullying and harassment on Feb. 7.
According to the document, prior to the game Staudt asked the school’s principal and athletic director whether the player was a biological male. The administrators then allegedly confirmed that they had been notified that the player was transgender, but denied her pleas to have the player removed.
Staudt removed herself from the game. Then, according to the document, a TSD employee allegedly confronted Staudt’s younger brother for taking a video of the game, saying, “You better think twice about what you’re doing right now.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the TSD for comment.
Staudt appeared on the YouTube series “[un]Divided with Brandie Kruse” with her mother to discuss the situation this week, where they each repeated many of the same allegations included in the complaint.
CANADIAN CHRISTIAN WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM PUNISHED OVER DISPUTED ALLEGATIONS BY TRANS OPPONENT
“I’ve had threats at me. I’ve had people telling me I’m going to hell. I’ve had people saying, ‘Good luck having any future after this’ and saying, ‘I know all the people who are reporting your account are happy to see your downfall, and know that it’s going to be a real rough time for you in your future because of your decision to post this,'” Staudt said on the show.
Just days later, the trans athlete involved in the incident, identified as Andi Rooks, appeared on the same show alongside the athlete’s father.
Rooks would have sat out if Staudt’s concerns had been known.
“I’ve never had an issue until this game, and my goal was never to make anybody uncomfortable in any way, and I didn’t even realize Frances had an issue until I got yelled at at the game,” Rooks said. “If she had had a conversation with me before the game, I would have sat out. My last thing I want to do is make anybody uncomfortable.”
Washington’s high school athletes are currently allowed to compete based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. The WIAA policy states that each athlete will participate in programs “consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed,” and there are not even any medical or legal requirements. Bills that would prohibit transgender girls from participating in girls and women’s sports have been introduced but not passed.
Washington state Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal spoke in defense of transgender athletes in girls sports in an address last week, claiming it was “inaccurate” to say there are only two genders.
“It is quite simply inaccurate to say, biologically, that there are only boys and there are only girls,” Reykdal said. “There’s a continuum. There’s a science to this. There are children who are born intersex. There are children whose hormones and whose chromosomes are not consistent with their sex at birth.
“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.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Reykdal insisted that Trump does not have the authority as president to issue a ban on trans athletes in girls sports but conceded the U.S. Congress does. The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act is a bill in Congress that would carry out similar requirements as Trump’s order and has already passed in the House of Representatives. It has not gone to a vote in the Senate yet.
“Until Congress changes the law or our state legislature changes the law, we’re going to follow the current law and the current civil rights framework of this state, and that’s what it tells us to do,” Reykdal said.
However, the issue became so concerning for residents, that in December the WIAA announced a proposal to create a separate open division for transgender athletes to compete in.
That proposal came weeks after the Central Valley School Board, which oversees schools in Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake, Washington, voted to send a message to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) over the issues after much debate at a school board meeting.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
