This story was originally reported by Brooke Migdon of The 19th. Meet Brooke and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
Voters in seven states this fall will weigh more than half a dozen ballot initiatives with direct bearings on LGBTQ+ people — disproportionately on transgender youth. They come as LGBTQ+ rights issues feature heavily in campaigns for candidates on either side of the aisle in the final stretch of November’s midterm elections, which will determine party control of Congress and several key governorships.
Nearly half of LGBTQ+-related ballot initiatives this year would restrict trans student-athletes from competing in line with their gender identity, an issue championed overwhelmingly by Republicans and by a rising share of Democrats. Others would ban certain transition-related treatments for minors — another focus of conservative candidates and President Donald Trump’s second administration.
Since 2021, more than half the nation has adopted laws barring trans students from playing on school sports teams matching their gender identity, and 27 states have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth. Nationally, the number of trans students who participate in school sports is unknown, but is believed to be relatively low: The Williams Institute estimates that just over 300,000 13- to 17-year-olds in the United States are trans, and not all of them will play sports.
In Washington state, where voters will decide this fall whether to ban trans student-athletes from teams matching their gender identity, the organization governing high school sports told The 19th that it is aware of about 10 trans middle and high schoolers who play sports out of more than 200,000 students who compete statewide.
Other ballot initiatives appearing before voters this fall include measures to change the state constitution to expand nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people; formally repeal language against same-sex marriages and modify students’ and parents’ rights in schools.
Here’s where LGBTQ+ rights are on the ballot this November.
Arizona
Arizona voters will decide this fall whether trans student-athletes may continue to compete on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. A ballot initiative introduced late last year by state Rep. Selina Bliss, a Republican running for reelection, would effectively restore a 2022 state law restricting trans athletes’ participation that a federal appeals court had blocked in 2024.
Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, has declined to defend the law in court.
Bliss’ proposal would require public and qualifying private schools to designate K-12 sports teams as exclusively “male,” “female” or “coeducational” based on participating students’ “biological status at birth.” It would also bar trans students from using restrooms, locker rooms and other spaces “integral to athletic engagement” that match their gender identity.
In July, a lawsuit challenging the measure claimed it violated a requirement that Arizona ballot initiatives address only a single subject and was “misleading to the point of fraud.” A state superior court judge later ruled that the initiative could remain on the November 3 ballot.
Colorado
Colorado voters will decide whether to bar trans student-athletes from competing in line with their gender identity by designating K-12 and collegiate sports teams based on students’ “biological reproductive systems.” The ballot initiative qualified for the general election after Protect Kids Colorado, the organization behind it, collected more than 168,000 signatures statewide.
Voters will also decide whether to ban transition-related surgeries for minors, and whether state or federal funds, Medicaid reimbursements or insurance coverage can be used to help pay for them. Such surgeries are already rare. The measure, also introduced by Protect Kids Colorado, does not directly mention nonsurgical care.
State medical organizations, including the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians and the Colorado Medical Society (CMS), the state’s largest organized group of practitioners, have publicly opposed the healthcare-related initiative. “CMS members hold diverse political views but share a core principle: medical decisions belong in the exam room,” Brigitta Robinson, the organization’s president, said in September.
That initiative also runs counter to “shield laws” safeguarding access to gender-affirming healthcare, as well as abortion, in Colorado.
Missouri
In Missouri, voters will decide whether to reverse a 2024 amendment adding abortion protections to the state constitution. The new proposal would ban abortions in almost all cases, with exceptions for rape and incest, though only through the first trimester, and in medical emergencies throughout pregnancy.
It would also add language to the state constitution banning gender-affirming medical care for trans minors — prohibited by law in Missouri since 2023. An ultimately unsuccessful effort to disqualify the proposal from the November ballot, led by the ACLU of Missouri, claimed the measure violated the state’s single subject clause for ballot initiatives and failed to adequately inform voters of its intent.
Nebraska
Voters in Nebraska will decide whether to add language to the state constitution requiring public and qualifying private schools to designate athletic teams based on “biological sex,” and expressly declare that girls’ sports “shall not be open to students of the male sex.”
The ballot initiative qualified for the general election in August, after organizers collected more than 130,000 signatures from across the state. The following month, Nebraska voter Cara Ulman filed a lawsuit to disqualify the measure. Her legal team argued before the state Supreme Court in September that the measure’s sponsors had failed to “adequately inform the public of what they are trying to accomplish” with the initiative.
Because Nebraska’s secretary of state has already certified its general election ballot, the measure will go before voters regardless of the court’s decision, which is expected by October 27. But a ruling in Ulman’s favor would invalidate the results.
Nebraska law already prohibits trans student-athletes from participating in sports in line with their gender identity from kindergarten through college.
Vermont
Voters in Vermont will decide this fall whether to add an equal rights amendment to the state constitution. The proposal, introduced in 2023 by a coalition of Democratic state lawmakers, would prohibit unequal treatment “on account of a person’s race, ethnicity, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or national origin.” In Vermont, a constitutional amendment must pass two legislative sessions before it can go before voters.
Virginia
Virginia voters will decide whether to repeal language in the state constitution barring same-sex couples from marrying, and instead establish an affirmative right to marriage between two consenting adults regardless of their sex, gender or race. The proposal, first introduced in 2024, qualified for the November ballot after several failed attempts. In Virginia, proposed amendments to the constitution must be approved by the state House and Senate twice before they can appear before voters.
Virginia’s ban on gay marriage, added to its constitution in 2006, has been unenforceable since 2015, when the Supreme Court established a federal right to marry for same-sex couples in the United States. But marriage equality advocates have argued that recent decisions and public statements by the high court’s conservative supermajority have put that right in jeopardy. The Supreme Court declined to take up a case challenging its same-sex marriage ruling last fall.
Washington
Voters in Washington will decide whether to bar trans student-athletes from girls’ school sports teams by requiring every girl in the state to have her sex assigned at birth verified by a doctor — through either genetic or hormone tests or an examination of her reproductive anatomy — to determine eligibility for K-12 sports.
Opponents of the initiative have said it can be easily exploited, putting both trans and cisgender girls at risk of abuse. In a July op-ed, women’s soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe, a Washington native, argued the measure would drive some girls out of sports altogether.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has allowed trans students to compete in line with their gender identity since 2007.
The initiative qualified for the November ballot in January, after Let’s Go Washington, the political action committee behind it, collected more than 440,000 petition signatures from across the state. The group, founded by conservative hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, is also behind a second ballot measure to restore a 2024 state law regarding students’ and parents’ rights in public schools.
Washington’s Democratic-controlled legislature amended the law, known as the parental “bill of rights,” last spring, saying it was necessary to comply with existing state and federal laws. The new proposal would effectively reverse the 2025 changes.
State LGBTQ+ organizations and Democratic politicians — including Gov. Bob Ferguson — have opposed the initiative, arguing that it would put LGBTQ+ students at risk of being outed to unsupportive parents, among other safety and privacy concerns.
