Voting with their feet

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next: Boys in girls’ sports. Voters in Washington state face that question on Election Day next week. And some female athletes too young to vote are taking a stand of their own—on the cross-country course.

WORLD’s Ray Hacke reports.

RAY HACKE: Logan Mihailoff began the season on the boys’ jayvee team at Camas High. But after finishing 76th in Camas’ first race, Mihailoff switched to the girls’ varsity team – and found virtually instant success. He’s beat out hundreds of girls to stand on the podium in multiple races since.

SOUND: [RACE]

Girls on his team have walked off the course in protest. Three team captains from Camas, including reigning league champion Kate Westfall, also quit.

Hundreds of fans have shown up to Mihailoff’s races wearing caps and T-shirts bearing some version of the message, “Save Girls’ Sports.” Mihailoff’s second-place finish at the district meet helped Camas capture the championship – but plenty of people in attendance weren’t happy about it.

EMILY SADLOWSKI: The first time that she did step off, she was proving a point that her goal for this year was trying to make podium …

That’s Emily Sadlowski talking about her daughter, Charlie Garrett. The Skyview High runner led Mihailoff most of the race before fading to third. She had refused to run against him in an earlier race.

SADLOWSKI: And if Kate Westfall was running today, she would have got first or second with Sophie Rogers, Logan would have got third and my daughter wouldn’t have been on the podium.

At the district meet, supporters of Washington’s Initiative 638 rallied to encourage voters ahead of next week’s election. The measure would ban boys in grades K through 12 from competing against girls in interscholastic sports.

Frances Staudt plays basketball near Olympia.

AUDIO FRANCIS STAUDT: These girls in Camas did something powerful. They showed the rest of us what happens when girls stand together. It’s easy to point a finger at one girl. It’s easy to call one girl names. And it’s easy to silence one voice.

Staudt sat out the final game of her sophomore year after her complaints about an 18-year-old boy’s presence on the court – and in her locker room -- fell on deaf ears. She also found herself in trouble for “misgendering” the young man – she’d called him a “man” to his face.

Staudt says it’s unfortunate that female runners have had to bow out of races to protest a boy’s presence among them. However, she also praised the girls from Camas High for making the stand that they did.

STAUDT: But what happens when that voice becomes 10? What happens when 10 becomes 100? And what happens when girls all across Washington say, ‘Enough is enough?’ (CHEERING) I’ll tell you what happens: They can’t ignore us anymore.

Washington isn’t the only state with a pro-girls’ sports initiative on the ballot: Colorado has one, too. Both are blue states that have traditionally been friendly to LGBT rights. But if one poll released in mid-October is any indication, Washington’s measure has a decent chance of passing: The poll indicated that 56 percent of 7,500 likely Washington voters would vote ‘yes’ on 638, while only 24 percent would vote ‘no.’

Staudt will still only be 17 on November 3rd. That means she and other girls won’t be old enough to vote on Initiative 638. So they’re thus calling on eligible voters in Washington to do what they can’t.

STAUDT: Most of the girls who are being affected and having this impact go onto them are not able to vote. A lot of these girls are high schoolers and middle school girls, elementary school, so we are not able to vote ourselves. That’s why we need the adults to listen to us and hear the truth and hear that we are crying out for help, asking for them to protect us.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Ray Hacke in Camas, Washington.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.