Washington, Colorado Vote to Ban Transgender Athletes

In Washington, Measure 638 passed with more than 56% of the vote. It bars students who were assigned male at birth from joining teams designated for female athletes, and it asks athletes who want to compete in girls' sports to provide a statement from a health care provider that verifies their sex.

Colorado's Proposition 134 won the support of about 52% of voters. It requires schools and athletic associations to label each sport as male, female or coed, and it limits athletes to the category that matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

What makes these results stand out is where they happened. Democratic governors and Democratic-controlled legislatures in both states had declined to pass the kind of restrictions that have become routine in Republican-led states. Supporters of the bans went around the statehouse and took the question straight to voters.

The outcome suggests that an issue conservatives once used mainly to energize their base has gained backing across party lines. Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a professor at Duke Law School, said the result was always coming because politicians in those states had ignored what constituents wanted, and that this approach could only work for so long.

She added that whether other Democratic-led states follow will depend on their local political culture and on how well advocacy groups on each side can mobilize their supporters. For now, the two results give supporters of such bans a new argument that the issue is not confined to red states, and they give opponents a fresh reason to organize ahead of future ballots.

Other states voted on similar questions in the same election cycle. Arizona voters approved Proposition 318, which expands a 2022 law by barring transgender girls from female sports in every school and athletic association, where before the ban covered only public schools. It also limits bathroom and private-space use to the sex listed at birth, says an athlete's sex must match their birth certificate, and lets athletes sue schools or associations that break the rules.

Nebraska, which already had a ban, wrote it into the state constitution through Measure 442. The measure requires schools to designate each sport as male, female or coed and prevents students assigned male at birth from playing on female teams.

Not every effort succeeded, and not every ban has survived legal review. An appeals court on Tuesday struck down a county-level ban in Nassau County, outside New York City, a setback for the Republican nominee for governor, who pushed the rule while serving as county executive. In Missouri, voters rejected Amendment 3, which would have banned gender-transition treatment for minors and also repealed the right to abortion.

The votes arrived less than two years after President Donald Trump signed an executive order called "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." It gave federal agencies broad room to make sure funding recipients follow Title IX in line with the administration's reading of sex as the one assigned at birth. More than half the country now has some kind of transgender athlete ban.

Observers say the results show that some Trump-backed policies, including voter ID rules passed in places like Ohio, resonate beyond his own party. Yet bigger concerns, such as widespread frustration over the war in Iran, had a stronger effect on the midterms, which ended with Democrats winning control of the House and Senate. GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis said fearmongering about transgender people is a losing strategy and called for 2026 to be the last campaign to try it.

Blue States Join the Push on Girls' Sports

Washington's Measure 638 and Colorado's Proposition 134 passed, limiting girls' school sports to students assigned female at birth in two states led by Democrats.

Arizona expanded its restrictions and Nebraska put its ban in the constitution, while Missouri voters rejected a separate measure on transition care for minors.