While Election Day was tough for President Donald Trump and Republican officeholders, some of the president’s education policy prerogatives fared better as ballot initiatives, particularly on transgender student policies.
Ballot measures in four states—Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington—that would effectively bar transgender girls from female sports or expand existing restrictions on trans athletes passed or were on their way to passage. Trump has made such prohibitions a centerpiece of his education agenda and launched dozens of investigations into school districts for policies accommodating transgender students.
“It’s a very difficult moment for trans people to see this blue tidal wave, arguably the best election night for Democrats” in congressional and statewide office races, “but to see all four ballot measures pass” on sports participation, said Danni Askini, the executive director of the Gender Justice League, a Seattle-based transgender rights group.
Washington state’s Measure 638 is arguably the most expansive of the four sports initiatives. It would bar transgender girls from female sports, but not transgender boys from male sports. And it requires all students participating in K-12 female sports to provide a statement from a healthcare provider verifying their “biological sex.”
“Washington’s version is extreme, requiring physical exams, a blood test, or a hormone test,” said Askini, who led the opposition to the measure. “I don’t think people realize this is going to affect every cisgender girl participating in sports.”
The Washington state measure had garnered the support of 57% of voters, with 60 percent of votes counted as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the New York Times’ election results.
In Arizona, Proposition 318, a measure that requires all schools and athletic groups to designate teams as male, female, or co-ed based on participants’ sex at birth, was projected to pass 59% to 41%, with 84% of votes tabulated. The measure also bars students from facilities, including restrooms and locker rooms, that are not designated for their sex assigned at birth.
The vote was closer for Colorado Proposition 134, which also requires students to play on teams matching their sex assigned at birth and designating teams as male, female, or co-ed. With 76 percent of votes counted, the measure was ahead 52% to 48%.
And in Nebraska, Initiative 443, which would amend the state constitution to require schools to designate sports teams as male, female, or co-ed and bar transgender girls from female sports, was projected to pass 68% to 32%, with 91% of votes tabulated.
Arizona and Nebraska already bar transgender girls from girls’ athletic teams. The Arizona measure broadens the restriction while the Nebraska one enshrines it in the state constitution.
“Our hearts are heavy as we acknowledge difficult losses around the country that will deny transgender youth and their families the rights they deserve,” Deirdre Schifeling, the chief political and advocacy officer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and senior legal fellow of Defending Education, a group that has been supportive of Trump’s education agenda and has backed efforts to bar transgender girls from female sports, said that in an election in which Republican candidates were roundly defeated, some culture war issues resonated with a wide range of voters.
“It was very clear that the cultural issues, specifically as relates to gender identity, seem to be one on which a majority of Americans, both conservative and liberal, agree,” Perry said.
A parental-rights measure appears headed for defeat
Before this election, at least 27 states had passed laws or policies barring transgender girls and women from female sports. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its June decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J., ruled that such laws are consistent with the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause and Title IX, the federal law that bars sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges.
The court made clear it was not deciding whether states may choose to allow transgender girls to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity, which is the policy choice that Colorado and Washington state had made before Tuesday.
The justices are considering an emergency application from a cisgender female wrestler in Washington state who objects to having to face transgender female opponents. The application even invited the court to fully take up the flip-side question left open in the B.P.J. decision. But the justices have held on to the application for several weeks, perhaps waiting for the outcome of the Washington state ballot measure.
Meanwhile, another Washington state education initiative, Measure 1, appeared to be headed for defeat.
Measure 1 would reinstate a version of a parental-rights law passed by the state legislature but later softened that would give parents the right to be notified of medical services provided at school and restore stricter timelines for parents to be able to review their children’s records and school curricular materials.
The measure was losing, with 53% voting no with 59% of votes counted.
“I think the public here was a little bit more familiar with how extensive it was, such as how it would have caused the forced outing of transgender students and would have allowed parents to veto certain sex-ed. curricula,” said Askini of Gender Justice League. “I think that is part of why it went down.”
Other measures include DEI, Pledge of Allegiance, prayers, and a song
On another culture war issue, Arizona voters defeated Proposition 142, which would have amended the state constitution to bar state agencies and public schools from requiring preferential treatment toward or discrimination against individuals on the basis of race or ethnicity.
The initiative, viewed as an anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measure, was losing with 60% voting no with 83% of votes counted.
But voters in Wisconsin approved a comparable anti-DEI measure to bar state entities, including schools, from giving anyone “preferential treatment” based on race, with 56% of voters supporting it with more than 95% of votes tallied.
In Alabama, voters were on track to pass measures that would require schools to conduct the Pledge of Allegiance and broadcast “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The pledge measure, Amendment 3, also authorizes, student-initiated, student-led prayers at the beginning of the school day. It was projected to win 63% to 37% with 95% of votes counted.
The measure on the national anthem, Amendment 4, was projected to pass 59% to 41%, also with 95 percent of the vote tabulated.
Perry of Defending Ed said the Alabama measures are an example of “education always being, at bottom, a state and local proposition” with historically “religious underpinnings.”
