KALAMA, Wash. (AP) — Colorado and Washington are reliably Democratic states where elected officials have rejected moves to ban transgender women and girls from female sports competitions. Now activists have gone around lawmakers to put proposed bans on both states’ ballots.
At a time when some Democratic leaders nationwide are recalibrating their approach to transgender issues, particularly sports, and polls show Americans generally back the bans, supporters are optimistic they will pass and open the door to similar efforts in other places where lawmakers have blocked bans.
Though the issue has been debated in many legislatures, this is the first time it’s going to voters.
“What is happening in 2026 is a testing ground for the future,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which supports LGBTQ+ rights.
Twenty-seven states — including all where Republicans control both the legislature and governor’s office — already have such laws.
The efforts are billed as a way to protect women and girls and keep separate spaces for them, tapping into a concern that’s gained momentum. President Donald Trump has taken steps to roll back transgender rights. The Supreme Court has upheld state sports bans.
A June poll from Quinnipiac University found that about 7 in 10 registered voters think transgender women and girls should not be allowed to play on female sports teams. About one-quarter think they should. Democrats are divided, with about half saying transgender women and girls should be allowed and about half saying they should not.
Robert Preuhs, a professor of political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said the absence of public polls on Colorado’s ballot measure, which also covers college sports, makes it hard to predict whether it will pass. “It’s probably going to get more support than some of the Republican candidates that will run,” he said.
Since transgender restrictions gained traction this decade, states with Democratic-led governors’ offices and legislatures generally have rejected proposals such as banning transgender people from the bathrooms that match their gender identity and restricting gender-affirming care. Most Republican-led states have adopted those policies.
In addition to the two blue-state questions, a measure in Arizona would broaden an existing ban to include private schools, and one in Nebraska would add an existing state law to the state constitution.
The argument has been framed around fairness
There’s not a clear consensus on whether transgender women and girls have a competitive advantage. Factors include the age of the athlete, the sport, whether the athlete went through male puberty and how long they’ve received hormone therapy.
But the idea that girls are being cheated is personal for some athletes.
Ahnaleigh Wilson, a 17-year-old junior at Eastmont High School, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Seattle, has been speaking out against allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports since she was in junior high. She said she’d won all her 1,600-meter races in seventh and eighth grade — until she finished second to a transgender athlete in a major meet.
“I knew it wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair,” she said.
Wilson said three other transgender athletes she’s competed against since then placed better in girls races than they would have with the same times against boys.
“Women have fought for Title IX and our own categories and it’s very important that we keep the dignity of that, and let women have their own sports and their own spaces to be safe and completely fair,” she said, referencing the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities, including athletics.
Opponents say excluding transgender girls is also unfair.
“They will say that they want to protect kids and in particular, young girls,” said Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, which is leading the opposition to the measure there, “but I don’t understand how you can protect kids and discriminate against kids at the same time.”
The number of transgender girls in school sports is believed to be a sliver of the total participants. Neither Colorado nor Washington has an official count.
Let’s Go Washington, which is behind the measure in that state, says it’s counted 16 such athletes and that there could be more. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has counted about 101,000 girls in sports that it oversees — a figure that double-counts girls who play in multiple sports.
The issue crosses party lines — and that may be the idea
Imara Jones, an advocate who runs a website that features the stories of transgender people, said the issue is attractive for conservatives because some Democrats agree with them.
Hedge fund manager Brian Heywood is funding Let’s Go Washington, which is also behind two other measures. One would expand parent access to school social work and counseling records for their children and one would repeal a newly adopted tax on incomes over $1 million.
Western Washington University political scientist Todd Donovan said Let’s Go is hoping that voters supporting the transgender sports ban would also favor overturning the tax.
Tracy Flint of Ridgefield, Washington, a Democrat and former graphic artist, said she’s wrestling with how to vote.
“It’s new to my brain, so it’s a really tough one for me,” she said.
Her husband, Dave Flint, 60, a former Republican who opposes Trump and now votes for Democrats, lamented that an issue affecting so few people has become such a national controversy. “But I guess you still have to address it,” he said.
One Colorado’s Bridges said she believes that many voters can be persuaded to oppose the measure there, though the challenge is reaching them. Groups registered as opposing the transgender-related measures in Colorado have raised nearly $4 million — more than 20 times what proponents have brought in, but not a lot for a statewide campaign.
In Washington, Let’s Go has raised more than $7.8 million to campaign for the three measures — nearly twice as much as the ban opponents.
One key question is how to enforce the ban
The Washington measure would require that a healthcare provider verify the student’s “biological sex, relying only on one or more of the following: The student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
“We see that as being as simple as a checkbox,” said Let’s Go Washington spokesperson Hallie Herzberg. “Doctors can use the history of the patient from treating them all their lives or their medical history forms.”
But Dr. Libby Loft, who opposes the measure, says the language calls for a genital inspection as part of a physical, or expensive testing.
“I think it doesn’t make any sense to force the working families of … girl sports players in Washington to pay for unnecessary medical tests to be able to weed out an estimated five or 10 girls in the state of Washington, trans girls,” Loft said.
She fears the verification requirement will lead to fewer girls — trans or not — playing sports.
The idea of exams bothers some voters.
“I’m voting against it primarily because I think medical exams of girls’ genitalia is, like, Middle Ages,” said Rosemary Kacorozki of Renton, Washington, 63, a language interpreter.
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Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.