Conservatives are turning to American voters to target trans rights

After years of fighting in state legislatures, the anti-trans movement has found a new weapon: the popular vote. For transgender people across America, Election Day is not abstract.

Petition gatherers began showing up at farmers markets and grocery store parking lots in Colorado last fall, clipboards in hand. They collected signatures for two ballot initiatives, one to bar transgender girls from school sports and another to ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors. They had help. Colorado’s Catholic bishops urged parishes to host signature drives. The lead pastor of Flatirons Community Church asked his congregation to sign. They succeeded.

What looked like a local campaign was something broader. It is part of a coordinated national strategy unfolding in Maine, Washington, Colorado, and Missouri. The goal is to take the fight over transgender rights out of legislatures, where advocates have blocked many bills, and put it directly to voters.

It is working. At least five anti-trans ballot measures are confirmed or effectively confirmed for the November general election. Two in Colorado. One in Washington state. One in Maine. And in Missouri, a measure would ban gender-affirming care for minors while also rolling back abortion rights approved by voters just two years ago.

“This harkens back to 2004 and the playbook around marriage equality,” says Alana Jochum of Advocates for Trans Equality. “Our opposition is turning to an old playbook to scapegoat a small population.”

That year, same-sex marriage bans appeared on ballots in 11 states. All passed. In the years after, 31 of 34 such measures passed before the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges made them unenforceable.

Advocates saw this shift coming. Chris Melody Fields Figueredo of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center says she began warning LGBTQ+ groups as statehouses took up anti-trans proposals: “When we started to see the anti-trans bills in state legislatures. I reached out and said, ‘Let’s start talking. Because if it moves through legislatures, it will eventually reach the ballot.’”

Last year, more than 700 anti-trans bills were introduced nationwide. Advocates defeated roughly 90 percent. That success helped drive the pivot. If lawmakers cannot pass restrictions, voters might.

The measures themselves carry real consequences.

Colorado’s Initiative 110 would ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors, though the state’s major pediatric hospitals do not perform them. Initiative 109 would bar transgender girls from school sports. There is no reliable data on how many transgender student-athletes are in the state.

In Washington, a measure would require sex verification by a health care provider before girls can play school sports, based on anatomy, genetics, or testosterone levels. Opponents say it could subject all girls to invasive scrutiny.

In Maine, a proposal would require schools to assign sports teams and facilities based on sex assigned at birth, despite existing protections under state law. (A hearing is underway today on this measure, see video stream below.)

Missouri’s Amendment 3 goes further. It would ban gender-affirming care for minors and link that ban to rolling back abortion rights. Polling suggests the combination increases support.

“Our opposition is trying to confuse voters and undermine bodily autonomy,” Jochum says.

Fields Figueredo described the strategy. “These are bad-faith attempts to target communities and create harm, to drive turnout,” she says.

Advocates are organizing in response. A coalition called Rising Together is bringing together reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ groups, particularly in Missouri.

“The reproductive rights groups were like, ‘We are not going to pit movements against each other,’” Fields Figueredo says. “Each of our liberation is tied to each other.”

Still, the burden falls unevenly. It falls on transgender youth, their families, and communities, who are now watching their rights put to a vote.

“I believe that the arc of history bends toward inclusion and equality,” Jochum says. “But in the meantime, our opposition is trying to use fear to divide us.”

The meantime has a date. November 3.

Watch Live: Hearing on challenge to Maine transgender sports ballot initiative: