Dori: Dad calls summer swim league’s gender changes `child abuse,’ moves family out of WA state

After more than 40 years, changes coming to the Greater Seattle Summer Swim League for 2,000 kids between Woodway and Federal Way have “destroyed” the seasonal outdoor program, according to one dad who says he’s moving his family out of Washington state to seek athletic fairness for his teen daughter.

That’s what Snohomish County parent Steve Abramowicz told Tuesday’s Dori Monson Show just hours before the man’s family packed up for Tennessee.

The tipping point for his family’s departure? A cluster of GSSSL by-law changes that “allows some pretty sketchy stuff,” according to Abramowicz, who describes himself as “just a concerned dad.”

He cites new rules that mean “girls locker rooms have to open to men” and allow roving “equity officers – unscreened, no background checks” to roam around the league’s 16 swim clubs, asking youth “sexual orientation questions.”

Changes would affect swimmers at Arbor Heights, Gregory Seahurst, Kent, Lakeridge, Marine Hills, Normandy Park, Olympic View, and Twin Lakes swim clubs in the southern division. In the north division, this involves Aqua Club, Blue Ridge, Innis Arden, Klahaya, Sand Point, Sheridan Beach, View Ridge, and Wedgewood clubs.

What is equally concerning to the father of one son and one daughter? A GSSSL task force recommendation would have biological boys/trans girls ages 12 years and younger compete in an open category with biological girls. Transgender swimmers 13 and older would have to undergo some form of hormone therapy or puberty blockers to compete in so-called “elite” time-based competitions.

That could mean some biological boys/transgender girls would “have to start the cycle of drugs at age 9, or they won’t be at their full potential at age 14,” Abramowicz said. “It’s child abuse. China, Russia, and North Korea are laughing at us.”

Following his family’s move, Abramowicz said, he will commute between his business here in Washington state and Tennessee – where his high school-aged daughter plans to compete against biological girls in swimming and tennis – “without the nonsense, without risking her life and her future.”

“Washington,” he adds, “is not providing the best for their young women.”

Meanwhile, Abramowicz said, he commiserates with other parents and grandparents disturbed by another proposed change: removing at least one club’s records board that has been charting best swim times – separate for boys and girls – for the past 70 years.

“They want to take this down,” Abramowicz said. “What does that do for the girls?

“I tell you: this is the end of women’s sports in Washington. Mark my words.”

Listen to Dori Monson weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.