This is an update on our battle to restore Title IX Girls rights here in Washington state. On February 28, 2025, the Washington Parents Network filed a Title IX complaint against Chris Reykdal and Bob Ferguson. Failure to comply with Title IX could lead to loss of federal funding. So it is important to resolve this conflict as soon as possible. The best way to resolve any conflict is to begin by telling the truth. Unfortunately, Washington leaders like Chris Reykdal continue to lie to the public. His latest and biggest lie is that “biological sex is a continuum.” The reason this lie matters is because the word “sex” in Title IX refers to biological sex.
Reykdal’s claim that Biological Sex is a continuum is false
In a recent Youtube video, Chris Reykdal claimed that there is a “continuum” of sexes ranging from male to female. Here is a quote from his video: “It is quite simply inaccurate to say biologically that there are only boys and there are only girls. There’s a continuum. There is a science to this. There are children who are born intersex. There are children whose chromosomes and their hormones aren’t consistent with their sex at birth…Our state laws make clear that students get to identify and participate in activities based on the gender in which they identify.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZgyernK0mY
Chris failed to provide any scientific evidence to support his claim. Perhaps it is because there is no science that supports any of his crazy claims.
On February 19, 2025, a major US poll asked voters whether they agreed with Donald Trump’s Presidential Order stating that “there are only two sexes.” 96% of Republicans agreed that there are only two sexes, 59% of Independents agreed that there are only two sexes. But 77% of Democrats disagreed – apparently believing that there are more than two sexes. https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3919
This poll result shows a huge need for more biology courses in our public schools.
One of the groups that needs to be informed are New Jersey hospitals. On March 5, 2025, it was revealed that New Jersey hospitals are now asking parents whether their baby is heterosexual or Trans. The following form is required by a recent New Jersey law. Here is the form parents need to fill out:
Fifty years ago, it was well understood by 100% of all Americans that there are only two sexes. We therefore need to take a close look at where this gender confusion has come from.
Evidence that Biological Sex is Binary and not a continuum
The term “sex” in Title IX refers to biological sex which in turn is based on genetics. In genetics, the definition of sex is based on chromosomes present in every cell of our bodies. A person who has only X chromosomes is a female and a person who has a Y chromosome is a male. Crucially, biological sex is not something “assigned at birth.” Rather biological sex is determined at conception.
There are some extremely rare genetic “intersex” cases that might warrant further consideration. As we explain below, these exceptions apply to about 1 in 2000 humans. However, placing over-emphasis on extremely rare cases that occur in 1 in 2000 humans should not be used to deprive the rights of 1,000 in 2,000 humans who are biological females.
Despite the fact that such extremely rare intersex cases exist, it is false to claim that human sex exists along a spectrum or continuum. In 99.95% of all cases, human biological sex is binary. As we show below, it is also extremely dishonest to associate “intersex” issues – which are extremely rare physical genetic problems - with “transgenderism” which is a clearly a mental health problem that has no relationship to intersex problems.
Title IX is based correctly on the fact that humans are binary and can be divided into males and females. The purpose of Title IX is to protect the right of biological females to fair sports and academic programs. Current attempts to place the rights of biological males with serious mental health problems above the rights of a huge number of biological females is not only unwise, it is a clear violation of Title IX.
Learning from the Olympics
The past 14 years of Olympic competition, which is open to billions of athletes from around the world, shows that this genetic binary definition of males and females is a practical division that allows fair competition for biological girls. During the past 14 years, there have been more than a dozen athletes – all claiming to be female – who were eventually banned from female competititon because they were found to be biological males. This included the 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist, Caster Semenya. While some magazines, such as a 2021 Scientific American article, claimed Semenya was a female, actual genetic testing confirmed Semenya had a Y chromosome and was therefore a biological male.
The other person the Scientific American article used as an example of a woman being discriminated against for having very high testosterone levels was Dutee Chand. While a genetic test has never been released for this person, in 2023, Dutee was suspended from competition after a random out of season urine test found Dutee had been taking anabolic steriods to improve her performance.
Here is a quote from the 2021 Scientific American article:
“Some women have XY chromosomes… Such attributes reflecting variation beyond the rigid male/female binary are known as intersex traits… According to interAct, an intersex advocacy organization, 1.7 percent of the population may be intersex.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hormone-levels-are-being-used-to-discriminate-against-female-athletes/
It is crazy to say that “some women have XY chromosomes.” If they have XY chromosomes, they are biological males. This confusion is magnified by going to the Interact website, where you will find this quote: “About 1.7% of people are born intersex. (estimates are based on work by Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, 2000).” https://interactadvocates.org/faq/#howcommon
What the Interact website fails to mention, is that Fausto-Sterling’s estimate was widely condemned by real scientists who pointed out that her estimate was based almost entirely on a single genetic defect called Klinefelter (XXY) syndrome that only affects biological males.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
The mistake made by Fausto‐Sterling was including a condition called Klinefelter (XXY) syndrome – which does have a prevalence of 1.7% of all males in her estimate. Klinefelter syndrome is a birth defect that occurs in male children resulting in smaller than normal sex genitalia. However, at birth, these infants appear to be normal biological males – although they tend to suffer from motor and language delays. It takes a genetic test to verify this problem and the average age of diagnosis is about age 30. In addition, a 2021 genetic analysis of more than one thousand transgender males found that only 1% of them had this genetic condition – the same rate as the general population.
So there is no relationship between Klinefelter Syndrome and Transgenderism – which is a mental health problem and not a physical problem. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35394664/
Excluding this genetic disorder, the rate of intersex humans falls dramatically to less one in two thousand humans. In short, genetic testing is valid and accurate in 99.95% of all cases.
Using a clinical definition for “intersex” to mean an infant who is not clearly either a male or a female at birth, the actual rate of intersex infants is about one in 2,000 – or about 0.05%. https://www.hudson.org.au/disease/womens-newborn-health/intersex-conditions/
Fausto‐Sterling also included Turner syndrome which is a genetic disorder that affects 1 in 2000 females or 1 in 4000 humans or 0.025%. Turners Syndrome is the result of girls having a defective X chromosome that may result in sterility and hormonal imbalances. People with Turner syndrome may have problems with growth, development and fertility. Complications include heart, kidney and lung problems, ear infections and infertility. Again, this problem only occurs in infants which are clearly identified as girls at birth and are therefore not “intersex” by definition.
In addition, no studies have found that girls with Turners Syndrome have a higher rate of Transgenderism than the normal population. But even if there was a relationship, Turners Syndrome is so rare that it would not affect the total prevalence rate of Transgenderism – which every credible scientific study on this subject has determined to be a mental health problem related in part to higher than normal “adverse childhood events” and not related in any way to genetic disorders.
The solution to Transgenderism is mental health counseling and not Trans Drugs. Sadly, counseling gender confused children is banned in Washington state which is a Trans Drugs only state thanks to Reykdal and Ferguson and Policy 3211. This is one more of many reasons that it is essential to appoint a Washington State Title IX Enforcement Officer.
Huge physical differences between boys and girls begin at birth
There are huge differences between the development of boys and girls. For example, the mitochondria in the cells of boys have a much higher basal metabolic rate than the mitochondria of girls. This difference appears within two days of conception. This is likely one of the reasons women live about 10 years longer than men. In addition, female brain development runs about three years ahead of male brain development. In total, there are at least 6,500 genetic differences between human makes and females. Over 30 different areas of the body are affected by these 6,500 differences.
Here is a link to a 2017 study: https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-017-0352-z
All of these 6,500 variations are at the cellular level – meaning they affect nearly every cell in the body including every neuron in a person’s brain. As just one example, serotonin differences in the brain are regulated by a group of genetic markers that act (are expressed) much differently in males and females. The serotonin levels in male brains is about 52% greater than in female brains. Here is a link to this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC24674/
This is likely one of the reasons why girls are more sensitive to stress and why girls are more likely to suffer from Depression than boys. Here are brain scans of 8 male and 7 female subjects:
Serotonin synthesis capacity values declined at an earlier age in girls than in boys. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10072042/
In another recent study of brain differences using three independent cohorts (N ~ 1,500 young adults aged 20 to 35), the researchers also found huge differences in brain functioning. Here is the link: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2310012121
Here is the graph:
You can plainly see that there is no overlap or continuum between males and females.
Here is a quote: “These findings strongly suggest that what’s going on in a woman’s brain at rest is significantly different from what’s going on in a man’s brain at rest. These findings strongly suggest that the determinants of cognitive functions in male brains are profoundly different from the determinants of cognitive functions in female brains.”
Here is a 2022 study of huge sex differences in heart mitochondria:
Here is the link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31544-5
Here is the quote: “We observed that expression of genes encoding mitochondrial proteins are higher in males than females in humans.”
In short, there is no science that supports the ridiculous claims that Reykdal frequently makes about a “continuum.” Instead, hundreds of scientific studies confirm that there are only two sexes – male and female – and these two sexes are radically different. This is why males should not be able to participate in girls sports and why it is time to restore Title IX here in Washington state.
Please share this article with any of your friends who have swallowed Reykdal’s lie about sex being a continuum. As always, I look forward to your questions and comments.
Regards,
David Spring M. Ed.
Washington Parents Network