Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced that she and the city would back the Seattle School Board’s unanimous vote to begin legal action to block enforcement of Initiative 638, which requires separating boys and girls in K-12 sports in Washington state. Voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative in 36 of the state’s 39 counties. Critics have charged that Wilson and other Seattle Democrats are seeking to negate the popular vote after campaigning on “saving democracy.” The greater challenge, however, is the legal basis for such an action in light of recent Supreme Court rulings.
Wilson issued a statement that she would back the School Board in refusing to accept the result of the election in order to maintain “a Seattle where every person is welcomed, supported, and valued, and where all young people can thrive as their authentic selves.”
The question is the grounds for such an action and whether the Board will burn millions on a quixotic challenge that could establish even more negative precedent for blue states on the issue.
The Court recently handed down decisions in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, ruling in favor of such state limits. The Court specifically ruled that states can exclude transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports teams. Indeed, the justices ruled unanimously that laws enacted by Idaho and West Virginia rejected federal civil rights challenges.
The Kavanaugh decision states that “[c]onsistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the States may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex. The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America.”
That decision followed a 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, where the Court upheld a Tennessee law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy by transgender teenagers.
In the Kavanaugh opinion, the Court accepted that men and women have “inherent physical differences” that are “relevant to athletic performance.” It accepted the view of these states that “forcing female athletes to compete against males can create significant safety risks” in contact sports. It also found that “in virtually all competitive sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can undermine competitive fairness.”
Thus, neither the Constitution nor Title IX are viable bases for an attack on the Washington initiative. In light of those decisions, the question is how the Board and the City will fashion its challenge to the election results on Initiative 638.
Jonathan Turley is the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.” He teaches a course on the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
Jonathan: Might there be a challenge under state law–maybe the state constitution?
ESTOVIR, is Easy Rider going to be a regular puppet? Or is he just a one-day creature?
The points of reference for the legal discussion would be federal anti-discrimination law (largely humbug and ill-advised when not) and the 14th Amendment (by and large, a latrine).
Slightly off topic
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns in chicky pooh affairs. Life isn’t all peaches and cream. Was Jensen a friend of Jeffrey Epstein? Time will tell. Meanwhile guys, Keep your pants buckled and zipper zipped.
Here is an interesting point to ponder for the MAGA faithful here.
As I understand it, MAGA dogma holds that Washington State is a bastion of leftist wokeism, and yet the people there voted in favor of a favorite MAGA doctrine that girls sports should be protected from boys claiming to be transgender.
Does this mean that Washingtonians have now seen the light, and joined the MAGA movement?
No, it means they passed a measure preserving men’s and women’s sports as separate endeavours. Something that would not have been a matter of controversy in the dark days of…2012.
The legislation is only dealing with women’s sports. It doesn’t prevent women from competing in men’s sports; it only requires genitalia examination of those applying to be in women’s sports.
Males are excused from having their penises fondled to make sure they are real before competing in men’s sports. Presumably the same is true for transsexual men.
1. Girls do not have to have anything fondled. All that’s required is a quick glance to confirm the presence or absence of a penis — but even that isn’t required because the person who is supposed to sign the letter attesting to this has already seen it many times and doesn’t need to see it again for this purpose.
2. There is no significant problem of women trying to compete in men’s sports, because almost no women can compete at that level. Any woman who wants to join a men’s team is generally welcome to try, so long as she’s willing to change and shower in a private room, which she generally will happily agree to.
Millhouse, respectfully, both of your points fall apart the second they touch basic medical practice or Washington constitutional law.
First, your assumption that a teen girl’s doctor “has already seen it many times” is completely false. Standard wellness checkups and routine sports physicals for healthy adolescent girls do not involve inspecting their uncovered groin or genitals—doctors check heart murmurs, lungs, blood pressure, vision, and joints. A physician cannot legally sign a state verification form based on a birth certificate or a memory from when a patient was a toddler in diapers. If a girl goes to a sports clinic, urgent care, or a pediatrician who hasn’t performed a genital exam, Initiative 638 forces the provider to conduct a medically unnecessary genital inspection—or order expensive genetic or testosterone blood tests—just to clear her for middle school track.
Second, “nobody minds if girls try out for boys’ teams” is not a legal defense under Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment. A state cannot force every minor girl to submit medical proof of her reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, or hormone levels to play school sports while imposing zero verification requirements on boys. Even the Idaho and West Virginia laws upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court applied equally to bothboys’ and girls’ teams. Singling out only female students for invasive medical screening is a textbook unequal burden based on sex.
“Singling out only female students for invasive medical screening is a textbook unequal burden based on sex.”
Your feminine hysteria has been well addressed and mitigated by multiple replies here, today and yesterday.
even “respectfully” is copycatted from one of X’s favorite adversaries
The standard of care for well-child checkups by their pediatricians certainly does include looking at their uncovered groin. Perhaps some doctors provide less than the standard of care, but that doesn’t change what the standard is.
And that is all that is required. Your claim that it requires “fondling” is an outright LIE.
The fact that only girls need this verification is completely right and just, and not in any way unconstitutional, because it is only girls’ teams that need this protection. There’s no reason to require such a statement from boys (even though every single one would have no problem providing it, because boys’ physicals always do include actual inspection of the genitals), because no girls are trying to fake their way onto the boys’ teams, so requiring a statement would be pointless. It’s absurd to imagine that the constitution requires something that is completely pointless, just to make boys and girls equal.
Millhouse, inventing quotes nobody ever said and making up fake medical guidelines still doesn’t fix your argument.
1. Stop arguing against words you invented: I never used the word “fondling”—youintroduced that word two comments ago just so you could knock down your own strawman. What I actually pointed out is that forcing minor girls to submit to state-mandated genital inspections, chromosome tests, or hormone draws just to play middle school track violates their constitutional privacy rights.
2. Your “standard of care” claim is medically false: Under the American Academy of Pediatrics (Bright Futures) guidelines, routine genital exams are not required for asymptomatic adolescents once they complete pubertal development (typically by age 14–15). Furthermore, thousands of student-athletes get their sports physicals at urgent care clinics, school health centers, or sports clinics—not from a lifelong pediatrician. Under Initiative 638, a clinic provider who has never seen that teenager before cannot rely on a birth certificate; the law forces them to conduct an on-the-spot genital inspection or order lab tests just to sign the form.
3. Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment explicitly forbids one-sided burdens: You argue it is “absurd” for a constitution to require equal rules for boys and girls when lawmakers assume only girls’ teams need protection. That is literally what Article XXXI of Washington’s Constitution requires: “Equality of rights and responsibility under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.” Even the Idaho and West Virginia laws upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court applied equally to both boys’ and girls’ teams so they wouldn’t impose an unequal burden on one sex.
You can’t wave away the plain text of a state constitution just because you find equal treatment inconvenient.
You keep making claims about Iniative 638 that have no basis in the Text.
Aparently this is the 2nd go arround for this initiative, it was passed by voters previously, ignored by the State legislature and apparently The WA constitution then allows Voters to override the decision of the legislature to ignore it.
This is NOT a new law it is existing law with modifications as a result of the Washington Ballot Initiative process.
Below is the WA law regarding Public School sports as modified by IL-638
https://www.sos.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/INITIATIVE%20IL26-638%20fulltext.pdf
WA Already requires students who participated in athletics to get a physical first.
That section is modified as follows:
“(1) Existing Washington state law and school district policies
require students to undergo a routine physical examination prior to
participation in interscholastic sports, which includes documentation
of the student’s sex assigned at birth;”
There is NO CHANGE to the requirement to get a Physical.
The Physical itself is NO DIFFERENT than it was before.
What is changes is that the Physican must essentially check a box indicating what the student birth sex is.
The law DOES NOT require any specific process that the Physician must follow.
They can reach their conclusion in whatever way they wish.
John, thank you for linking the PDF—it shows you stopped at Page 1.
You quoted Section 1 (“The people find…”), which is a non-binding introductory preamble. The actual binding text in Section 3(2) directly contradicts your assertion that doctors can reach conclusions however they wish, requiring verification based strictly on designated biological parameters.
The statutory language restricts how providers verify eligibility. As the Washington Attorney General’s official Explanatory Statement confirms, “Students would thus have to undergo some type of medical evaluation of their sex to participate in interschool sports designated for female students only”.
Furthermore, your claim that this measure “was passed by voters previously” is false. IL26-638 was filed in June 2025 and appeared before Washington voters for the very first time on November 3, 2026.
Seriously John. That was just pathetic.
Try reading past the first page next time.
” What I actually pointed out is that forcing minor girls to submit to state-mandated genital inspections, chromosome tests, or hormone draws just to play middle school track violates their constitutional privacy rights.
Nope WA students are ALREADY required to have a physical prior to competing in sports. I 638 has No provisions for changing the process of a physical – except that the physician must check a box specifying the birth assigned sex.
With respect to your claim that the right to privacy is violated – not based on current Constitutional law.
The requirement for students to be vaccinated to attend school has been found constitutional by the US supreme court.
Most Covid Vaccination requirements have been found constitutional.
YOU were arguing previously that extra curricular sports are a privildege and therefore the state can imposed conditions tha tviolate constitutional rights such as free speech for participation.
Once again you are arguing out of both sides of your mouth.
” Under Initiative 638, a clinic provider who has never seen that teenager before cannot rely on a birth certificate;”
False – this is a made up claim – I linked to the actual text of the modiffied WA Code after I-638 provisions are added.
A physician at an ALREADY REQUIRED physical must merely check a box indicating the students assigned sex at birth.
The law included ZERO direction as to how that is to be determined. It is up to the physician to determine how they do so.
“The law forces them to conduct an on-the-spot genital inspection or order lab tests just to sign the form.”
Nope – read the law.
“3. Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment explicitly forbids one-sided burdens:“
There is no one sided burden. ALL students are required to have a physical to participate in sports.
As to the rest of your argument – Your read of the WA constitution would make separate sex sports teams unconstitutional in WA.
Separately – thought the WA supreme court has decided this improperly in the past The actual drafting history and ratification of the WA Equal rights provision – done in 1972 – makes it clear that it is about Biological Sex, not gender, not sexual preference, not any of the rest of the nonsense that the left has attached to it.
The lefts idiotic conception that the meaning of a law or constitution changed over time without it actually being amended is absurd and dangerous nonsense.
When the US sought to pass the ERA at approximately this time – the RIGHT argued that doing so would result in exactly the kind of nonsense that the WA supreme court is claiming that the WA version does now – without ever being amendment.
At the time Democrats, liberals, the left assured everyone that this was not some slight of hind tricj or slippery slope effort to get everything from gay rights to trans, to pedophila to beastiality constitutionally protected.
Those “conservatives” were just engaged in whacky tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.
What is true is the conservatives of the 70’s were prescient – those on the left many not intentionally lie, but they are happy to accomplish through the backdoor what they can not through the front.
They are happy to leverage laws and constitutional provision that they SWORE at the time could not lead to what they tell us they clearly do now.
This is one of the reasonm that the meaning of laws and constitution MUST be fixed to what they meant when passed.
We are always free – top further amend the constitution.
The WA constitutional amendment applies TODAY to biological sex ONLY – as it did 50 years ago when it passed.
Nor does it preclude sex differentiated sports teams today – because it did not then.
If you do not like that – amend the constitution further.
Regardless there are actual legal analysis of this out there.
IL-638 is the law of the land in Washingon.
It appears the state legislature can not change it for 2 years and even then it would require a 2/3 vote in both chambers which they do not have.
It can be change in the next general election by a new ballot initiative.
WA courts can find it unconstitutional – but atleast as of the last update of the last website I check – there was no pending constitutional challenge. But that is likely imminent and may exist by the time I post this.
State courts can find IL-638 unconstitutional – and that will apply however WA’s judicial rules dictate – i.e. I am not sure that a ruling by a single judge applies state wide – but it might.
The WA supreme court can invalidate IL-638 for the entire state. In the 2026 election 5 of the 9 WA Supreme court justices were up for election. Most of those elected are NEW – because of Retirements. It is not certain how they will rule. But it is likely thay will be nearly as whacky as the prior court.
Regardless until the law is found unconstitutional WA schools HAVE NO CHOICE but to follow it.
Doing otherwise is illegal and should result in their removal from office.
It can and likely will result in their being sued and wilfull violation of the law likely is not covered by any form of immunity.
My Guess is that a WA court will invalidate this on WA constitutional grounds shortly.
The courts and government in WA are relatively far left.
The question becomes to what extent that angeers voters and what do they choose to do about it.
YOU have argued that the recent blue wave was a result of not abiding by the wishes of the voters.
If you actually beleive that – then you should expect WA to change as much of its judiciary and legislature as it can in the 2028 election.
“. A physician cannot legally sign a state verification form based on a birth certificate or a memory from when a patient was a toddler in diapers.”
Without a response to what I see as potential imperfections of the law. WHY NOT? The birth certificate has a date, so changes can be noted. Doctors’ records, while the child is young, are reasonably accurate, and the doctor has a legal and ethical duty to tell the truth.
Though I can see how people can have various ways of defining sex, I understand looking through different lenses, but your statements on this subject aren’t based on critical thinking skills, GSX, but on low-IQ copy-and-paste habits and constant self-contradictions. For comparison’s sake only, and to demonstrate that ideology is not the basis of my analysis, I recently guessed AOC’s IQ to range between 115 and 135, even though I think her policies and approach to governing our country are flawed. Yours, however, is significantly lower in my opinion, ranging between 95 and 115, perhaps lower by another 10 points, given how difficult it is to gauge when AI is doing your thinking for you.
No.
The majority of Americans, Democrat, Republican and Independents agree biological men have no place in women’s sports. It is common sense. Nothing to ponder. Only people who believe in the men can be women nonsense are woke leftists. The rest of us say, if you were born a biological male, want to identify as a women, fine. We will make you your own category or league.
Support women’s rights.
Common sense.
So Washington can no longer be a bastion of leftist wokeism because a majority voted for something that is common sense.
So you will no longer be ranting about the leftists on the left coast.
JFC, get a hold of yourself.
Look, there are a lot of lesbians in WA that do not want their grooming venues to be infiltrated by penises, that is likely the difference in this vote.
Rest assured that Seattle (aka Seatroit), in particular, will ensure its continued ruination via leftist dingbattedness.
Written by someone who has never had a woman love them.
When leftist anywhere, say anything stupid and crazy it should be pointed out. Just like Bill Maher does and just like the good professor does. IF leftists would stop saying stupid and crazy things, there would be no discussion. But there should be when they say clearly anti-Constitutional or anti-American things. And we need to constantly point out that they have in fact said those things like passing laws to ensure they never lose a election again. Packing the court to ensure the laws they pass to ensure the never lose an election again to ensure their one party rule. Those kind of things need to be pointed out.
No, though Washington is one of many “blue” states that are slowly turning red. Washington is not doing so fast. But it is doing so.
Crazy left wing nuts are excellent recruiting form the GOP.
Baring bio men from womens sports is not a MAGA issue it is one of Trumps 80/20 issues.
Aparently in WA it is only 56/44
OT
Medicare for all is unconstitutional.
Congress has no enumerated power to regulate healthcare.
________________________________________________________________
“Per the written text of Article I, Section 8, there is no enumerated power to regulate healthcare, hospitals, or medical providers. If Congress were to regulate a national healthcare scheme without any enumerated power in the text to do so, it would be regulating the healthcare industry outside the authority granted to it by the Constitution.”
– Gemini, Google AI
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
“The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum,” Richard Rowland.
Revolution 2.0.
2.1 MILLION POINTS OF REGULATION BY CONGRESS PER ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
“To establish a universal single-payer program like Medicare or Medicaid for All in the United States, federal oversight would encompass roughly 2.1 million distinct entities and practitioners across the healthcare delivery and insurance sectors.”
– Gemini, Google AI
In other words, the mayor is telling the voters “I don’t give a damn what you want, it’s what I want that counts”.
That is the entire leftist dogma. Princess 5-head is just following the script
The Washington initiative is plainly unconstitutional.
Here is what it says:
(2) A student who elects to participate in individual or team
competition activities intended for female students only governed
under subsection (1) of this section shall provide, as part of the
required routine sports physical examination, a health examination
and consent form or other statement signed by the student’s personal
health care provider that verifies the student’s biological sex,
relying only on one or more of the following: The student’s
reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously
produced testosterone levels.
Note that it applies to “female students only“.
Note that it imposes on female students a requirement to affirmatively prove their biological sex by one of three methods. They must provide documentation of their reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or testosterone levels. So girls must either submit to an inspection of their genitalia, or submit lab results of genetic makeup or testosterone levels. Lab testing is expensive, and inspection of genitalia is humiliating.
This initiative does not apply to males. It imposes a burden on girls to submit to a humiliating inspection of their genitalia, or provide expensive lab testing results.
This is clearly a violation of equal protection, since it burdens females but not males.
All the school board is doing is asking the court to resolve this obvious conflict.
Turley deliberately ignores this reality and distorts what is actually going on to stoke the rage of the MAGA mob.
He is either being deliberately disingenuous, or is ignorant of the factual basis of both initiative and the constitutional issues that it raises.
Either way, this is shameful behavior from a professor of constitutional law at a major US law school.
Exactly! 👍
X, try to write under your one identifier, “X” rather than creating your imaginary playmate “anonymous,” designed to look like your opinions have approval from another.
Sorry anonymous, but that wasn’t me. I always write under my own identifier.
You’re simply paranoid. There ARE others who understand the fact the professor is being disingenuous with the facts.
Nobody has shown I have been wrong about my assertion regarding the legal issue Turley is ignoring. But do carry on.
really?????????????????? just read the comments about your or replying to you.
Yeah….really. You’re just being paranoid.
When I was in middle and high school we had to provide a doctor’s note that we were physically fit to play the sport. The health inspection included a check for hernia. “Turn your head and cough.” I was not traumatized, triggered or harmed by the doctor touching my junk.
mike
The point is not the mechanics of a routine physical, or whether you were personally traumatized.
The point is that girls would be burdened with requirements that are not part of a routine physical. Girls are not checked for hernia because their inguinal anatomy is completely different from boys. Girls are unlikely to develop a hernia. Boys are 10 times more likely to suffer a hernia.
The initiative would require girls to submit to something that was not required of boys. This is a violation of equal protection.
The initiative is problematic because it requires ALL girls to affirmatively prove that they are female in an effort to identify a tiny minority of students who are transgender.
I can guarantee that if this initiative goes into law, within weeks there will be parents of girls suing the school board. If parents cannot afford lab testing and their daughters refuse to submit to inspection of their genitalia, then they will sue the school board. The school board is trapped between a rock and a hard place. All they are doing is asking the court to resolve the obvious conflict, nothing more, so that they are protected from lawsuits.
X, try to write under your one identifier, “X” rather than creating your imaginary playmate “anonymous,” designed to look like your opinions have approval from another.
aw, georgie, “nothing more,” nothing less. You are soooooo original
LOL! That’s not me.
“inspection of genitalia is humiliating.“
Really? How so? How is it humiliating for your own doctor to see your genitals, which she surely must see many times over the course of treatment. How is it even humiliating to have a team doctor glance at your genitals, when you are applying to be on a team that will involve showering with your team mates every time you play or practice?
As for the “unequal burden”, the problem is males forcing their way onto female teams by fraudulently claiming to be females, not the other way around. The female teams are the ones that are a special accommodation for females, since they are unable to compete with males. Male teams are not special accommodations, they are the default teams that are open to the best athletes. Almost no females are trying to get on those teams, because almost no females are good enough. So it is not a problem.
Millhouse, respectfully, your argument still runs into three major factual and legal problems:
First, your assumption about pediatric care and school sports simply doesn’t match reality. Pediatricians do not routinely inspect a healthy teen girl’s genitals during annual wellness checkups or standard sports physicals unless she has a specific medical symptom—so a doctor does not have a record of “seeing it many times.” Furthermore, most K–12 school teams don’t have a “team doctor” or mandatory communal showers, and changing in a locker room with peers is fundamentally different from the state government legally forcing a minor to undergo a genital inspection or blood draw just to play middle school track. Under Article I, Section 7 of Washington’s Constitution, the state cannot compel intrusive medical exams without strict lawful justification.
Second, calling girls’ sports a “special accommodation” gets both Title IX and Washington constitutional law backward. Equal athletic programs for girls aren’t a special favor that justifies stripping female students of their privacy rights—they are an equal educational right.
Finally, under Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment, the state cannot impose a burdensome legal mandate on one sex and zero requirements on the other just because lawmakers assume one side faces a bigger problem. That is precisely why states like Idaho and West Virginia wrote their laws to apply equally to both boys’ and girls’ teams—whereas Washington’s I-638 singles out only girls for mandatory anatomical, genetic, or hormonal certification.
“So girls must either submit to . . .”
That’s a lie. A doctor’s certification, like a student gets for vaccinations, is neither of those.
“All the school board is doing is asking the court to resolve this obvious conflict.”
Another lie. See their stated motivation.
Sam, nope. Do some research. It’s not what you think it is. I’ve explained it so many times in this topic. You can find it in almost any thread debunking the claims made by the MAGA crazies and the ignorant.
There is a European study-have an ecopy on the computer-about the relative strength of males and females. Given examples of each of comparable age, height, weight and fitness, women have 52% of the upper body strength and 66% of the lower body strength of men.
One would think that should settle the question of comparative competitive equality, but apparently it doesn’t.
Yes, it’s an adulterous place these United States. Not those United States, but these United States certainly are. Wasting money is a problem as people are straining to live on social security. Living on social security really can’t be done. This morning I wasn’t thinking about the lgbt problem at all. I was thinking about the hard-working people finding themselves in a world of poverty growing ever deeper.
Delete Title IX.
If the Seattle school board will not work to protect female privacy and the rights of only biological female children to participate in female child’s sports, and if not doing so becomes the norm and results in physical or psychological injury to a female child, why are the school board members and teachers that follow the school board’s policies not committing child abuse and so charged? I thought progressive politicians have cautioned that underlings were not required to follow illegal orders? Now THAT would be an interesting legal question.
The only abuse going on here is that which would be imposed by the initiative requiring girls to submit to a humiliating inspection of their genitalia, or submit lab testing to prove their biological gender.
This does not apply to boys.
The school board quite correctly says that this violates constitutional equal protection rights, and they are simply asking the court to resolve the conflict.
The school board are the ones fighting to protect “female privacy” and to ensure equal protection.
1. There is nothing humiliating about a visual inspection of the genitals. Anyone not willing to have others see them naked has no business trying to play on a team that involves showering together on a regular basis. Especially since this “inspection” isn’t even a real thing, since the athlete’s own doctor, who has already seen her genitals, can simply write a note saying so.
2. There’s no parallel requirement for boys because there’s no issue of girls pretending to be boys to get on to boys’ teams.
What happened to Feminism? I remember the 60’s and 70’s, when a political movement arose in part to open career opportunities for women and to protect them from male violence. Now politicized females are letting males pretending to be females to invade their safe places to take aware the pleasure of sports competition.
Nothing happened to feminism. It was humbug in 1963 and remains so.
Sorry, feminism is now focused on the proliferation of islamists throughout the democrat party. If they are successful, we’ll likely not hear much from them going forward.
There is no such thing as a “trans” athlete or a “trans” anything. Until the use of the fake word, “trans…” is removed from the conversation, normalcy will not return.
There is no such thing as a “trans” athlete or a “trans” anything. Until the use of the fake word, “trans…” is removed from the conversation, normalcy will not return.
“forcing female athletes to compete against males can create significant safety risks”
It is also the case that biology in every aspect is unfair. Some people are short, some tall, some with a significant percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Why is it conservatives are concerned with “fair” for playing stupid games when they fight so hard to be unfair on an economic and social status basis? Women’s sports is DEI, which conservatives hate.
It is to wonder how what happens in one city has any effect on the remaining redneck counties, yet impoverished redneck counties are always looking to punish those in large cities for the economic successes of those cities.
It is driven by billionaires hiring millionaires to convince the middle and lower classes to become minions for the oligarchs.
Ah, no. Those of us outside of the cities are not looking to punish anyone. And I would be hard pressed to find any success of those cities, namely the Blue ones with their crime, high costs of living, broken infrastructure, high taxes, failed public schools. For the most part, we just want those in the cities who want to impose their will on the rest of everyone else, to leave us alone. I dont need a Starbucks, McDonalds, or WalMart.
No millionaires around here. No one is convincing me to be anyone’s minion.
Cities can’t grow enough food to support themselves. Still, they believe they don’t need farmers or ranchers. There own short-sightedness is breathtaking 🙄.
Turley is one millionaire setting this up as a fight between the red counties and the blue cities.
UpstateFarmer is falling for it.
Many cities have lower crime rates than rural areas do. The only thing that is different is the concentration. When one guy in a town of 200 kills his wife and child, it doesn’t make national news. When 10 murders happen in a city of 10 million people say “Look at all those murders in that big city.”
Part of what happens economically in cities is that billionaires demanded tax breaks and then took the money to invest in Chinese factory production, leaving those in the cities without jobs. These tax breaks cut the funds available for schools, for infrastructure repair, and the job loss left fewer residents to bear the burden of a city once built for a far larger population to support. Those most likely to leave were those with the most money – so not only can a fraction of the people that the city operated with, the ones who remain are often the poorest.
One only needs to look at Flint, Michigan for how a large company departing can obliterate a city. It wasn’t the residents’ fault that Ford kept making crappy cars long after the Japanese started competing with them.
Another problem is the “cost of living” argument. There is also a question of value for that cost. Once one gets to the city, using an outhouse is problematic. Having nearby access to international flights, national touring companies for theater and opera productions, having large art collections, a zoo, more than one movie theater, more than the Walmart Super Center. A top tier hospital and short ride to the emergency room. All of that does have a cost. Certainly more than a do-it-yourself amputation might cost.
No one is forcing UpstateFarmer to become transsexual, but it’s not uncommon for a transsexual in a rural community to be beaten or killed. It won’t be reported that way by local police, because it makes the town look bad.
There is no reason for the outstate people to vote at all on a matter that doesn’t affect them, except for spite.
No, the good professor is doing no such thing. What he does do, is points out some of the stupid and crazy some Blue states or cities do to themselves. As I stated, we want nothing to do with them and to be left alone. As the state of Washington voted, 36 out of 39 counties voted against biological males in women’s sports. The majority of Americans both Democrat and Republican and Independent do not think biological males should be in women’s sports. That is just common sense.
Flint, one, according to history, Ford was not based out of Flint. GM was. Two, the 1973 oil crisis is what drove Americans to opt for smaller, more fuel efficient Japanese vehicles, leading to a turn down in the American made auto industry. Three, high crime rates fueled the “white flight” that was being experienced in many cities during that time. I know as my own parents left Chicago after witnessing the riots for a small midwest, town with high school taxes for higher quality schools. As back then, today, that school system is considered conservative.
What the Blue cities suffer from is their own higher taxes vs. their Red states counter parts. We have been seeing it in NYC for awhile now as businesses and people leave for lower taxes cities and states. Not their fault. It is the city leaders who vote to increase taxes. We saw it with VA gov Spamburger when she voted to increase taxes after she got sworn in. NYC Mamdani has been pushing for similar and now that she won re-election, NY gov Houchel is hinting she will raise taxes after refusing to answer prior to election day she would or would not.
We dont have outhouses here. That is a urban myth. We dont shop at big box stores. We shop local. All those amenities might be nice, but not worth the crime, high taxes, high cost of living, traffic. The we have to be our own doctors is just another urban myth. There is a hospital with an ED 30 minutes one way, and another 35 minutes the other.
Why would a transsexual live in a rural area? And why would anyone beat or kill them? Like we do not want to be bothered by those in the big cities, we do not get into others business. Love who you want, dress the way you want, none of our business. We have our friends and neighbors but generally keep to ourselves.
Fake Farmer
Why aren’t you in class??
Are you now a college dropout?
Perhaps you only started this charade of attending college because you intended to dropout and become just like the rest of the MAGA mob, a bunch of loser dropouts.
Oh, and women’s sports and women’s rights, is not DEI. It is common sense to look at someone and say, “That is a dude.”
Making a separate league for INCLUSION in high school and college sports is part of DEI.
Otherwise, there would be only one and if the women can’t cut it on merit they don’t deserve to be there.
There is a biological difference between men and women. That is why we have two different leagues. That is common sense, not DEI.
You could make the exact same argument against women’s suffrage. I find it unconvincing.
It’s essentially a policy question whether women’s sports should be integrated or separate but equal, and progressives insist on a transmuted interpretation of established law.
No, DEI would be the insistence that facilities for and expenditures on male and female athletes would have to be the same, rather than according to an assessment of marginal utility influenced by the difference in interests between males and females. With certain sports, it’s probably not too different (soccer, cross country, swimming, track and field). With some there’s a modest difference (basketball, gymnastics). With some, you have divergent forms (field hockey and softball for females, ice hockey and baseball for males). Then you have sports in which you simply should not have young women competing (wrestling, weightlifting).
==
Past a certain age, you should hardly ever have males and females competing with each other.
There was a girl on the wrestling team at a nearby high school more than ten years ago. In her weight class, she said, “The boys are stronger, so I have to be quicker!”
This is precisely why yesterday, I noted in a comment that at least 10-12 transgender persons were just elected on Nov. 3 to legislative offices in overwhelmingly Democratic strongholds around the country. (I think only one of them was a Republican.)
I support the equality and rights of TRUE examples (not en vogue social constructs) of transgender variables, and the non-discrimination thereof. But it has taken me a long time to realize how this has been subversively used to affect politics and political parties.
Over 250 years, we have successfully developed, honed, and amended our laws to create a body politic that reflects our values and hold this nation together; “conservative” only means a tendency for preserving foundational principles with reasoned restraint and forethought before implementing any drastic change. Democrats have turned ‘conservative’ into an ugly, inferior, word.
Bringing this full circle, I find Professor Turley’s most important sentence (right there in his opening paragraph) to be about attempts to “negate the popular vote after campaigning on ‘saving democracy.’” How are Democrats doing this? By changing the very demographic characteristics of our “democracy” and creating a disparate coalition of peripheral and minority populations in order to out-power a staid and principled majority and “save” what they are in truth trying to create. In other words, fight the law by changing the makeup of voters and legislators, such that the true majority becomes a minority.
If it were not so not-funny, it would be funny: The Statue of Liberty with a sign saying, “Send me your _____, your _______. your _________, your ________”
(I accept any criticism forthcoming.)
Turley is being disingenuous. That’s the problem. This is not about negating a popular vote because they are saving democracy as Turley puts it. It’s about an entirely different legal issue, an issue he left out for the purpose of trotting out this false narrative.
Turley frames the Seattle School Board’s vote as partisan defiance (“refusing to accept the result of the election”). The true context of this issue is the Board stated it faces a direct legal dilemma: Washington’s existing statutory law (the Washington Law Against Discrimination) explicitly prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, and I-638 takes effect on December 3, 2026. School administrators argue they are caught between conflicting state mandates and need a court to resolve which law governs.
He leaves out that I-638 requires every girl wishing to play school sports to provide a healthcare provider’s verification based on “reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels”. Only girls. Because it only applies to girls without including boys as well the law is in conflict with the state’s constitution. The board is challenging I-638 only because it puts them in a legal bind. Not because they are lookin for defy the voters as Turley wants people to believe.
Lin. You’re a lawyer. At least so some cursory research into this and find out for yourself if Turley is not telling the whole truth about why the school board is doing this. Exercise some skepticism. His angle is about defying voters and SCOTUS’s rulings on these bans. But…he’s ignoring the fact this is a state issue with its own constitution.
ahh the disingenuous attack…. thanks for making it in the first sentence so I can scroll on
Garyesq2k2, that’s unfortunate because there’s a very important point made. Choosing to wallow in your ignorance is certainly your prerogative. That’s why Republicans lost the election. They relied on the ignorant for too long.
X
As you say, Turley is being completely disingenuous here. And as you note he has been making it a habit to routinely omit facts and context in his articles to give a distorted account of reality.
The real issue here is not that he has been consistently doing this.
The real issue here is not the fact that he does this, the real issue is WHY he does this.
The answer is obvious. He is simply catering to his MAGA audience here. The issues he writes about are usually not reported widely, so how is he actually hearing about these issues. This story is currently on the front page of Fox.com, so obviously his overlords at Fox, the Murdoch family, have instructed him to publish this piece of nonsense.
The other possibility is that he is simply not writing this stuff at all. These stories may be ghost-written by people at Fox, and he simply reviews and signs off on the stories without actually knowing the full factual reality and context.
Either way, this is not acceptable from a supposed expert in constitutional law at a major US law school.
X, try to write under your one identifier, “X” rather than creating your imaginary playmate “anonymous,” designed to look like your opinions have approval from another.
Perhaps YOU should adopt a clear identifier so we don’t confuse you with other anonymouses.
There is no such thing as a ‘transgender person’. There are sexual deviants – some homosexual and some fetishistic – hiding under that label.
No criticism. It’s just bizarre.
It’s definitely a homosexual nation soon not to exist. Islam isn’t tolerant. lol, Moslems and trans in Congress.
happy holidays
Wait a sec. I thought these people supported “democracy?” Haven’t the people spoken they don’t want the transgender lie and oppression of girls and women by males in their schools?
Mike thinks that transgender people exist as a personal affront to Mike. That they know that Mike has feelings about leering at a person dressed as a girl and discovering that girl has a penis. It affects Mike because he sees girls solely as sex objects and not human beings able to make their own choices.
I have no idea what Mike thinks is a lie. Is it a problem with the hookers he picks up not telling him about their genitals or a desire to screen little girls on their way into the bathroom to check to see if their genitals are pleasing to him?
“The people” have spoken that slavery is OK. That putting women to death over a literal witch hunt is OK. That hanging Black people from trees, setting them on fire, using explosives against Black churches is OK. That separate water fountains, lunch counters, bus seats, and schools is OK. That blasting people asking for equal treatment with fire hose and sending dogs to tear their flesh is OK. “The people” is who does that.
Now that such things are less acceptable in regard to Black Americans, “the people” need a new target to harass and victimize. The billionaires hire millionaires to put crosshairs on this new target to distract the middle and lower classes from the massive theft and corruption the wealthy bring to the US government.
Long story short, Mike made a number of reasoned comments and now with nothing else to respond to his comments, you make up a bunch of lies about Mike and things he never said.
Mike indicated that his sole gauge is what “the people” want. That oppression of a minority by the majority is right. It’s not particularly “reasoned” to say “might is right.”
There is no such thing as a transgender person.
In the movie Braveheart there is a scene where William Wallace tells Robert the Bruce that he needs to lead Scotland to find its sense of itself against King Edward the Long Shanks of England. Robert the Bruce did at the Battle of Bannockburn. The Seattle flap has company. Destin, Florida has announced that it has capsized both its St. Patrick’s Day and Pride events for 2027. Its reason is a recent Florida antiDEI statute. The town says the statute forbids both. The optics of both flaps invite complaint that what is really afoot is destruction of the national sense of of ourselves. Is that destruction fueled by a modern Edward the Long Shanks from across the water with foreign money? Or is it homegrown stupidity?
@Mike
Also recall how broken hearted Robert was when he betrayed William Wallace and realized what he had done. I hope it isn’t, but that could be us in a couple of months.
Are “we” Irish? Are “we” Catholic? If not, why would celebrating a Catholic saint from Ireland be appropriate for taxpayers to foot the bill for?
Anyone who thinks a Mel Gibson film is at all accurate historically is a moron. Braveheart is only rescued from being the worst historical film ever by The Patriot. Wallace rebelled for his own desire of power, and the de Brus family were Norman knights imported by an earlier King of Scots (note, not Scotland, as that was not a concept) to be extremely brutal thugs policing the Galwegians (whom no-one regarded as proper Scots either, and who did not respect the authority of the King of Scots except when it suited them, and were most interested in enslaving northern English women…)
Oh, and never forget St Patrick was a Briton enslaved by the Irish. He was not Irish.
Never forget he chose to return to Ireland voluntarily as a Christian missionary to convert the very people who had enslaved him.
So, the Irish Americans are celebrating slavery? More reason to not have public funds go to this parade.
Professor Turley, how can Seattle, either the school board or the local government establish standing when it comes to schools outside their jurisdiction?
They aren’t trying to establish standing for schools outside their jurisdiction—they are suing over the direct legal and operational mandates imposed on their owndistrict.
Under Washington law, Initiative 638 applies statewide to every public school district, including Seattle Public Schools. Because Seattle’s own school board and administrators are legally required to enforce the initiative’s new medical verification rules on their own students starting December 3—or face state penalties and conflicting liability under Washington’s existing anti-discrimination laws—they have direct, concrete standing to challenge a state law that governs their own operations.
When a school district successfully challenges a statewide statute on state constitutional grounds, any resulting ruling by the Washington Supreme Court naturally applies statewide, simply because a law cannot be unconstitutional in Seattle and constitutional in Spokane.
Hope that clears things up.
Gotta love Trapper John and GEB. They have made my day. Keep writing!!!
Dear Mr. Turley, this is so sad. Why aren’t they “following the science?” What is going to happen is one of their own young girls will get a lifelong injury or will be replaced by a young man for a sport scholarship to the local college. Then and only then will folks like the Mayor of Seattle realize what they have done.
@anonymous–
Well, that has already happened, though not, insofar as I know, “to one of their own young girls.” But at least one young woman has received a long-lasting injury, at the hands of a transgender “girl” that has ended the former young woman’s promising volleyball career.
https://krcrtv.com/news/nation-world/volleyball-player-injured-after-transgender-opponent-spiked-ball-at-her-speaks-out
Women’s sports are for women & girls. XY DOES NOT EQUAL XX!