Nebraska and Arizona have passed ballot measures to ban transgender student-athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams, marking a significant referendum on trans rights. As of Wednesday morning, similar ballot measures in Colorado and Washington are still undecided, although early projections suggest that the measures will pass in both states.
Nebraska was the only state to add language explicitly directed toward trans students to its state code.
The measure, introduced in January, qualified for the general election in August, after organizers collected more than 200,000 signatures from across the state.
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Nebraska law already prohibits trans student-athletes from participating in sports in line with their gender identity from kindergarten through college.
Supporters of the ballot initiative have argued that enshrining the 2025 law in the state’s constitution would help prevent the legislature from repealing the law in future sessions. “One of the things we always worry about when we pass a law is that it can be unpassed,” Republican Rep. Kathleen Kauth, the law’s original sponsor, told Nebraska Public Media in March. The initiative was sponsored by the conservative advocacy group Fairness for Girls.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that states can lawfully bar trans student-athletes from competing in line with their gender identity.
The Arizona initiative, introduced late last year by state Rep. Selina Bliss, a Republican running for reelection, would effectively restore a 2022 state law that a federal appeals court blocked in 2024. Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, has declined to defend the law in court.
Bliss’ proposal would require schools to designate sports teams as “male,” “female” or “coeducational” based on participating students’ “biological status at birth.” It would also block trans students from using restrooms, locker rooms or other spaces “integral to athletic engagement” that match their gender identity.
“Sports designations must be clear and grounded in basic fairness,” Bliss said while introducing the proposal in December. Critics of the measure have panned it as overly broad and unnecessary, pointing to existing state eligibility guidelines for trans student-athletes. Others have said the measure would subject young students to invasive questions about their gender. “Honestly, this bill is repulsive to me,” state Sen. Mitzi Epstein, a Democrat, wrote on her website.
Ballots are still being counted in Colorado and Washington.
Colorado’s ballot measure would similarly designate sports teams from kindergarten through college as strictly male or female based on students’ “biological reproductive systems.” It qualified for the general election after Protect Kids Colorado, the conservative organization behind it, collected more than 168,000 signatures from across the state.
A second ballot initiative spearheaded by the group would ban transition-related surgeries for minors and prevent state or federal funds, Medicaid reimbursements or insurance coverage from paying for them. Such surgeries are already rare.
Republicans in Colorado’s state legislature, where Democrats hold the majority, have tried unsuccessfully in past years to impose restrictions on trans athletes and gender-affirming care for youth through legislation. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed “shield laws” protecting access to trans healthcare, as well as abortion, in 2024 and 2025.
In Washington, voters are deciding 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. The initiative’s opponents have argued that 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.
Let’s Go Washington, the political action committee behind the measure, was founded by conservative hedge fund manager Brian Heywood. The group collected more than 440,000 petition signatures from across the state to qualify the measure for the November ballot. Voters are deciding on two other initiatives introduced by the group — one related to students’ and parents’ rights in public schools and another to repeal a new state income tax on Washington’s highest earners.
Orion Rummler contributed reporting.
