Democracy is afoot! November 3 is election day for most of us, and your participation is required! Or warmly requested, at any rate. You may be familiar with, and deeply exhausted by, the vote blue no matter who online rhetoric, but rest assured: Nobody at Assigned Media is going to demand you tick the box for a transphobe on your sacred ballot.
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, because that’s your business! What I am going to tell you is that voting doesn’t have to mean lending your support to people who don’t respect you.
If you’re a regular reader, you may remember that just one day ago I published an article about ballot initiatives in Colorado and Washington. A ballot initiative is a proposed amendment to a state’s constitution, or a change to state statutes, initiated by citizens of that state. There are 26 states that allow this. Colorado and Washington—often viewed as safe havens for LGBTQ+ people—are facing some deeply anti-trans ballot initiatives in next week’s elections: In Colorado, Propositions 134 and 135 would ban trans kids from school sports and outlaw surgeries performed on minors “for the purpose of altering biological sex characteristics.” In Washington, I-001 would require forcible outing of trans kids to their parents by school officials, and I-638 would require mandatory genital examinations for any girl who wants to participate in elementary, middle school, or high school sports.
While I still don’t believe that we’re about to see a serious political shift in either state, Assigned was contacted by the political director of Families Not Politics, Dr. Jax Gonzalez, and LGBTQ communications consultant Angela Dallara about some hopeful assertions I made in yesterday’s article.
Dallara wrote that, while they hope Propositions 134 and 135 don’t pass, an internal tracking poll showed that both initiatives were polling “well above 50% until just last week, when a tracking poll showed both measures at just below the 50% threshold.” I should say that I can’t verify those numbers independently, but we have no reason not to believe them.
They also said that assumptions about whether or not they can win this fight, which they have raised millions of dollars to do, “dangerously distorts the reality of what Coloradoans are up against by assuming that both the proponents of the measure and trans activists are starting from an equal playing field.” The impact of fearmongering from anti-trans activists and transphobic politicians, they tell us, has a “disproportionately powerful and negative impact” that pro-trans groups “must do a lot more work to match.”
When I asked what Families Not Politics has been doing to prevent these Colorado propositions from passing, Dr. Gonzalez said, “[We] know that anti-transgender attacks aren’t only about transgender people; it’s about dangerous government overreach that affects us all. It’s about stripping individual health care decisions from individual Coloradoans and local control from school boards and associations, and replacing it with a one-size-fits-all government mandate. That’s why FNP has built as broad a coalition as possible that includes parents, medical providers, veterans, faith leaders, women’s organizations, civil rights groups, educators, and more, who understand the devastating impact and unintended consequences that may result from these proposals.”
When asked about their concerns for the future of trans Colorodans, Dr. Gonzalez answered, “Anti-transgender activists have said directly that if they can succeed in passing rollbacks this year at the ballot box, they will pursue the same strategy in the 2028 presidential election. Now is the time to pay attention and get involved, and to do everything we can to combat these attacks.”
Dr. Gonzalez is right. Other stronghold states like California and Massachusetts allow ballot initiatives, just like Colorado and Washington, and if anti-trans activists see success in circumventing more arduous lawmaking procedures to advance their bigoted goals, you better believe that’s going to be their next big battleground.
So here’s my advice: Don’t stay home. Don’t miss this opportunity to vote. You don’t have to give your blessing to some putz who threw your community under the bus, but you can vote against dangerous dark-money initiatives like Props 134 and 135… and you absolutely should.
