The man in charge of educating every public school student in Washington State went on record this week to declare that it is "inaccurate to say biologically that there are only boys or girls." He said there's a "continuum."

This is not a gender studies professor at a liberal arts college. This is the state superintendent. The one responsible for science standards.

Chris Reykdal, Washington State's Superintendent of Schools, posted the statement in response to ongoing debates over Title IX and transgender student policies. His full words: "We have a civil rights framework in our state. It includes trans youth. This is a biological question. It is quite simply INACCURATE to say BIOLOGICALLY that there are only boys or girls. There is a 'CONTINUUM.'"

The emphasis was his. The caps lock was his. The confidence of a man who has apparently never encountered a genetics textbook was also his.

Human beings reproduce sexually. There are two gametes. Two chromosome pairings that determine sex — XX and XY. This has been documented, peer-reviewed, and taught in biology classrooms since the 1880s. It is not contested in any serious scientific literature. Disorders of sexual development exist — they are rare medical conditions, not evidence of a "continuum" any more than a person born with six fingers proves humans aren't a five-fingered species.

But Reykdal isn't making a medical argument. He's making a policy argument and dressing it in a lab coat. Washington State maintains civil rights policies that allow students to participate in sports and use facilities based on their identified gender rather than their biological sex. Reykdal's statement isn't science — it's the legal justification for those policies, rephrased to sound like he's citing a textbook.

The trick works like this: redefine "biology" to include gender identity, then claim anyone who disagrees is "scientifically inaccurate." It's circular. The conclusion is baked into the premise. And the man deploying this logic runs the school system.

The responses were immediate and predictable. Parents and commenters pointed to AP Biology curriculum — the same curriculum taught in Reykdal's own state schools — which defines biological sex as binary. Others referenced the chromosomal science that has been settled for over a century. Nobody with a background in genetics backed Reykdal's claim.

The practical question this raises isn't abstract. It's about girls' locker rooms, girls' sports teams, and girls' privacy in schools run by a superintendent who has publicly declared that the category "girl" is biologically meaningless. If the person setting education policy doesn't recognize the biological distinction between male and female students, the policies he writes will reflect that — and they do.

NBC News recently included trigger warnings when reporting on the Supreme Court's Title IX ruling — as though informing parents about federal education policy might cause psychological harm. That's the media environment in which Reykdal felt comfortable making this statement. He knew he wouldn't be challenged by reporters. He was right.

Reykdal is an elected official. Washington voters put him in charge of their children's education. He's now told those voters — in caps lock, on the record — that he believes their daughters' biology is a spectrum and their textbooks are wrong.

The curriculum he oversees still teaches two biological sexes. The policy he enforces pretends there aren't. At some point, one of those has to win. He's already picked a side.