Facts F1-F12 by outlet group (news stories)

What this dataset measures

Coverage of I-638 was collected from outlet search pages, sitemaps, RSS feeds, web search and syndicated copies for three outlet groups fixed before coding (mainstream, conservative, progressive/advocacy), plus labeled fact checks. Any story that describes the measure or quotes someone on it was included; republished copies were coded once under the original. The same codebook was applied to every outlet so that omissions and errors can be compared in both directions.

Geography

Washington State, United States

Unit of observation

One news or opinion story about I-638

Update cadence

One-time audit; corrections published as new versions

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Facts F1-F12 by outlet group (news stories)

For each fact and outlet group, how many news stories included it and what share that is.

Unit of observation: Fact by outlet group

fact-rates.csv text/csv · 3.9 KB (4,037 bytes)

All 36 rows 8 columns Download the file

All 36 rows

fact	fact_label	fact_short	answers_side	group	news_stories stories	stories_including stories	share_including fraction
F1	Genetic or hormone tests allowed; no exam mandated	F1 Tests instead of exam [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	27	0.3506
F2	The girl's own provider verifies; no school role	F2 Own provider [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	7	0.0909
F3	Any measure of the male performance gap	F3 Performance gap [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	1	0.013
F4	Trans girls can still play on boys' or open teams	F4 Can play on boys' teams [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	7	0.0909
F5	27+ states, IOC or federal policy	F5 Other states/IOC [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	24	0.3117
F6	A documented WA placement, or the 269 count	F6 WA placements [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	8	0.1039
F7	Who funds the No side	F7 No-side funders [answers No]	No	mainstream	77	13	0.1688
F8	Heywood / Let's Go Washington funds the Yes side	F8 Yes-side funder [answers Yes]	Yes	mainstream	77	31	0.4026
F9	The AAP objected to the Yes pamphlet citation	F9 AAP objection [answers Yes]	Yes	mainstream	77	2	0.026
F10	Few trans girl athletes in Washington	F10 Few trans athletes [answers Yes]	Yes	mainstream	77	19	0.2468
F11	Cost or insurance of genetic or hormone tests	F11 Test cost [answers Yes]	Yes	mainstream	77	7	0.0909
F12	Forms sent to schools have no sex field; no form has the provider verify sex	F12 School forms lack sex [answers Yes]	Yes	mainstream	77	5	0.0649
F1	Genetic or hormone tests allowed; no exam mandated	F1 Tests instead of exam [answers No]	No	conservative	87	8	0.092
F2	The girl's own provider verifies; no school role	F2 Own provider [answers No]	No	conservative	87	9	0.1034
F3	Any measure of the male performance gap	F3 Performance gap [answers No]	No	conservative	87	4	0.046
F4	Trans girls can still play on boys' or open teams	F4 Can play on boys' teams [answers No]	No	conservative	87	3	0.0345
F5	27+ states, IOC or federal policy	F5 Other states/IOC [answers No]	No	conservative	87	20	0.2299
F6	A documented WA placement, or the 269 count	F6 WA placements [answers No]	No	conservative	87	19	0.2184
F7	Who funds the No side	F7 No-side funders [answers No]	No	conservative	87	6	0.069
F8	Heywood / Let's Go Washington funds the Yes side	F8 Yes-side funder [answers Yes]	Yes	conservative	87	2	0.023
F9	The AAP objected to the Yes pamphlet citation	F9 AAP objection [answers Yes]	Yes	conservative	87	0	0
F10	Few trans girl athletes in Washington	F10 Few trans athletes [answers Yes]	Yes	conservative	87	2	0.023
F11	Cost or insurance of genetic or hormone tests	F11 Test cost [answers Yes]	Yes	conservative	87	1	0.0115
F12	Forms sent to schools have no sex field; no form has the provider verify sex	F12 School forms lack sex [answers Yes]	Yes	conservative	87	0	0
F1	Genetic or hormone tests allowed; no exam mandated	F1 Tests instead of exam [answers No]	No	progressive	29	14	0.4828
F2	The girl's own provider verifies; no school role	F2 Own provider [answers No]	No	progressive	29	10	0.3448
F3	Any measure of the male performance gap	F3 Performance gap [answers No]	No	progressive	29	0	0
F4	Trans girls can still play on boys' or open teams	F4 Can play on boys' teams [answers No]	No	progressive	29	0	0
F5	27+ states, IOC or federal policy	F5 Other states/IOC [answers No]	No	progressive	29	1	0.0345
F6	A documented WA placement, or the 269 count	F6 WA placements [answers No]	No	progressive	29	1	0.0345
F7	Who funds the No side	F7 No-side funders [answers No]	No	progressive	29	2	0.069
F8	Heywood / Let's Go Washington funds the Yes side	F8 Yes-side funder [answers Yes]	Yes	progressive	29	12	0.4138
F9	The AAP objected to the Yes pamphlet citation	F9 AAP objection [answers Yes]	Yes	progressive	29	2	0.069
F10	Few trans girl athletes in Washington	F10 Few trans athletes [answers Yes]	Yes	progressive	29	6	0.2069
F11	Cost or insurance of genetic or hormone tests	F11 Test cost [answers Yes]	Yes	progressive	29	5	0.1724
F12	Forms sent to schools have no sex field; no form has the provider verify sex	F12 School forms lack sex [answers Yes]	Yes	progressive	29	4	0.1379

8 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
fact	string	Fact code F1-F12.	—	observed
fact_label	string	What the fact is.	—	observed
fact_short	string	Short label naming which side's arguments the fact answers.	—	derived
answers_side	string	No if the fact answers a No-side argument, Yes if a Yes-side one.	—	observed
group	string	Outlet group.	—	observed
news_stories	integer	News stories read in the group.	stories	derived
stories_including	integer	News stories that included the fact.	stories	derived
share_including	number	stories_including / news_stories.	fraction	derived

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• codebook.md Documentation · text/markdown · 8 KB (8,153 bytes)

  The codebook fixed before coding: ground truth from the text, sample rules, every field, claim codes and facts.

• derive.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 4.7 KB (4,849 bytes)

  Node.js script that recomputes the three derived tables from stories.csv (node derive.js).

Sources

1. Washington Secretary of State: Initiative Measure No. IL26-638, filed text Ground truth for coding facts and errors: Sec. 3(1) and 3(2) and the Sec. 1 findings

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (Washington State government). Linked, not redistributed

   Reliability: Government. The text as filed with the Secretary of State by the sponsor. It is the measure voters decide on; its Sec. 1 findings are the sponsor's own statements.

2. Washington Secretary of State: 2026 General Election voters' pamphlet, IL26-638 statements Source of the campaign claim codes (each side's own pamphlet wording)

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Public record (Washington State government). Linked, not redistributed

   Reliability: Government. The Secretary of State prints each campaign's argument and rebuttal as the campaign wrote it; the state does not check their accuracy.

3. WIAA: Health and wellness forms (medical history, physical examination and medical eligibility forms) Ground truth for fact F12 and the YDOC claim code: the history form that stays with the doctor asks the family to report sex assigned at birth; the forms sent to schools have no sex field, and no form has the provider verify sex

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Publicly posted form. Linked, not redistributed

   Reliability: Other. The recommended pre-participation forms posted by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, which runs high-school sports. WIAA marks the history and physical examination forms as staying with the doctor and the medical eligibility form as going to the school.

4. The 262 coded news and opinion stories (one URL per row of the stories table) Coded material. Each row's url is its own source; this entry links one example (KUOW, June 4, 2026).

   Retrieved October 23, 2026. Copyright of each outlet. Only URLs, headlines and short quotes for analysis are included; story text is not redistributed

   Reliability: News report. News and opinion outlets of every leaning, grouped before coding as mainstream, conservative or progressive/advocacy. Their own positions on I-638, where stated, are recorded in the opinion rows.

Limitations and reproducibility

Partially reproducible: Every coded story has its URL, and the codebook, the coded table and the script that computes every derived table (derive.js) are published, so anyone can recode a story and recompute every count. Coding is human judgment and was done by one coder per outlet group; no blind second coder has checked it. Some pages have since changed or are paywalled, so a recoder may see different text.

• No blind second coder has checked this coding; agreement is unmeasured. (A similar audit of I-645 coverage, with the same design, found 85-100% agreement.)
• The sample was found by search, not drawn at random. KING 5, KREM, KGW and McClatchy papers block automated reading and are under-represented; some of their stories were read through archived or syndicated copies, and 8 of 262 rows could not be read (their fact fields are blank).
• TV and radio stories were coded from their web text, not the broadcast.
• Including a fact is not the same as getting the story right, and omitting one is not by itself an error: short event stories cannot carry every fact.
• Counts of advocates do not weigh how much space each side got.
• Names of minors, and of parents whose names would identify them, are replaced with bracketed descriptions in every field. One story's URL (row P28, a Spokesman-Review op-ed of Oct. 11, 2026) is withheld because its slug contains a minor's name; its outlet, date, headline and codes are kept.
• Outlet groups are our classification, fixed before coding; The Stranger, Axios and Cascade PBS are counted as mainstream.
• F12 was reworded on 2026-10-23 after we checked WIAA's forms: the history form that stays with the doctor asks the family to report sex assigned at birth, but the forms sent to schools have no sex field and no form has the provider verify sex. Stories coded 1 said current physicals or forms do not record or verify sex, which the corrected wording still covers; no codes changed.