Based on anti-trans spending, right-wingers could afford to pay every trans student athlete a six-figure salary

On Tuesday, residents of four U.S. states — Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington — will vote on whether to ban transgender athletes from organized sports. Each state has a ballot measure backed by political action committees that spearhead advertising and outreach in its favor.

Together, these committees and their supporters have spent roughly $7.5 million this year on their campaigns. Such a hefty price tag is disproportionate to the actual level of trans sports participation in the states, a new investigation from Them and The Advocate has found.

No official national count exists for trans athletes. But an analysis based on state figures suggests that total ballot campaign expenses have surpassed $151,400 per actual trans athlete who would be affected, Them and The Advocate found. While approximate, this figure suggests that the political significance of trans sports participation in the United States has eclipsed the scale of actual participation.

“This is not about anyone’s access to sports,” said Tyler Hack, executive director of the trans rights group the Christopher Street Project. “This is about Republicans not having solutions for the problems facing people and being the first folks to punch down at a vulnerable community.”

Related: Texas Republican calls out GOP’s costly obsession with anti-trans campaigns: ‘It’s just not resonating’

The big picture

Republican groups have already spent millions of dollars combatting trans inclusion in sports. During the 2024 election cycle, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which cited data from AdImpact, conservative campaigns spent $123 million on TV ads targeting trans participation in athletics. That trend has carried over into the 2026 election cycle.

According to the Associated Press, which also cited AdImpact data, Republicans have poured $183 million during the midterm elections on anti-trans attacks. This analysis did not break out spending by sub-issue, but based on the proliferation of prominent TV spots on behalf of GOP candidates, it is safe to assume much of it focused on athletics.

The number of trans people playing sports competitively in the U.S. is vanishingly small by comparison. Since instituting a ban on trans participation last year, the NCAA says it has “effectively zero” trans athletes. And at the K-12 level, a 2025 Teen Vogue analysis of data from state-level athletic associations estimated only about 160 students out of eight million high-school athletes are trans.

This would suggest that in the 2024 election cycle, GOP-affiliated groups spent over $700,000 of advertising dollars alone per trans student athlete. It is almost certain this figure will remain in the six-figure range in 2026.

Related: Democrats keep asking trans people for money. We’re asking for a backbone

Tracing ballot initiative spending across states

Trans student athletes are facing targeted attacks this Election Day in the four states where ballot measures are seeking to restrict their participation. On this level, too, spending per athlete is in the six figures.

Each of these four ballot initiatives proposes restrictions on trans student athletes that will need voter support in order to take effect. Swaying voters in favor of the ballots this year has been a multi-million-dollar effort, based on figures the political action committees behind each project have provided to their respective state officials.

Arizona voters will consider Proposition 318, which would impose restrictions on locker room access and competitive sports participation for trans athletes. The committee established in support of the proposition, “Protect Girls' Sports in Arizona,” logged $3,429.30 in expenses this year, according to filings with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. The Arizona Free Enterprise club also spent $3,562.50 on flyers to support the measure.

In Colorado, Proposition 134 would ban trans student athletes from K-12 and collegiate sports teams aligned with their gender identities, assigning them based on their “biological reproductive systems.” Protect Kids Colorado, the committee pushing the ballot measure, spent just over $163,000 on its campaign this year, but spent more than $213,000 in 2024 and 2025, according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

In Nebraska, a group called Fairness for Girls has spent more than $3.2 million on its campaign supporting Nebraska Initiative Measure 442, according to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The measure would separate non-coed sports teams on the basis of “biological sex” and prohibit “students of the male sex from participating on teams or in sports designated for females.”

In Washington, a committee called Let’s Go Washington has spent about $4.2 million on campaign efforts this year, including support for Washington Initiative 638, which would impose “sex verification requirements for female school sports,” such as “documentation from their healthcare provider verifying the student’s sex.”

Let’s Go Washington also supports two other ballot initiatives: one that would allow parents to opt their children out of sex education classes and other curricular areas, and another that would repeal certain household income taxes. This means not all of its campaign funding goes toward the trans sports ballot initiative alone, but it still plays a major part in its campaign effort.

Trans sports participation is already low

Trans athletes already face barriers to organized sports, along with increased public scrutiny. Across the country, 27 states, including Arizona and Nebraska, already have legally codified some form of restriction on trans sports access, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank focused on issues related to the LGBTQ+ community and democracy.

Researchers have found that sports participation can improve fitness, mental health, self-esteem, and social skills among youth. But organized sports are widely separated by gender, which can pose barriers to entry for trans youth looking to get involved in sports, especially now that their participation has become a national source of partisan debate.

“Trans people just want to participate in life and be free to learn like every other child,” Hack said.

Between 2017 and 2022, the Arizona Interscholastic Association said it received about 16 waiver requests from trans athletes seeking to play on the sports team aligned with their gender identity, the Associated Press previously reported.

While the Colorado High School Activities Association does not officially count trans student athletes in the state, Colorado Newsline reported that a parent involved in organizing around trans inclusion in sports said they “can count [the number] on two hands,” suggesting fewer than 10 participants. The Protect Kids Colorado website does not provide a reliable number, claiming that a Department of Education report found that one Colorado county alone may have up to 61 roster positions occupied by “male students”; an official with that school district debunked the report, saying that mascots, managers, and trainers occupied those roster positions, not players.

From 2018 to 2025, the Nebraska School Activities Association received eight applications for sports inclusion from trans student-athletes, according to Nebraska Public Media.

And in Washington, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association said in 2026 it was aware of about 10 K-12 trans student-athletes statewide, per The 19th News.

As for college sports, an NCAA official said publicly in 2024 that fewer than 10 trans student-athletes were competing in college athletics nationally. Weighted by population, that would suggest no more than one additional trans student-athlete per state toward the total count.

This rough estimate suggests around 48 trans student-athletes across the four states. Even if that figure were rounded up to 50, it would still mean approximately $7.5 million in cumulative spending across the four ballot initiatives, or about $151,400 per student-athlete.

Nationwide, as voters head to the polls, Hack called the push from Republican politicians to focus on trans sports access a distraction from bigger issues.

“Trump has been super clear himself that this is a campaign ploy and not actually a problem facing Americans. He has said publicly that he wants Republicans to turn up the heat on this issue during campaign season,” Hack said. “People have been hearing about this danger of trans kids in sports for years now, and almost no one has actually seen that in their own community.”