Trans Sports Ban Gains Enough Signatures to Appear on Washington State Ballot |
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On January 3, 2026, the far-right political group Let’s Go Washington announced that it had collected more than 400,000 signatures — enough to place a transgender sports ban for high school students on the ballot with genital inspections as a primary verification method. The group, bankrolled by conservative megadonor Brian Heywood, previously played a central role in pushing a forced outing policy through the Washington State Legislature in 2024, a measure that was later significantly watered down. The signature haul is notable, marking one of the first serious attempts to bring a major and explicit anti-transgender initiative directly before Washington voters. Whether that strategy will succeed remains an open question: Republicans leaned heavily into anti-transgender campaigning in 2025 and suffered sweeping defeats nationwide, despite spending tens of millions of dollars attempting to turn transgender people into a political wedge. If the initiative passes, it may conflict with constitutional protections in the state.
The initiative, known as