Voters passed trans sports limits in four states. Now Washington faces a lawsuit and Colorado a rewrite

Voters in four states approved limits on transgender students in girls' school sports on Nov. 3, and the fight has already moved to the next arena. In Washington, a coalition of advocacy groups is preparing a lawsuit against Initiative 638 that it expects to file before the measure takes effect on Dec. 3, according to The Guardian. In Colorado, Gov.-elect Phil Weiser and Democratic legislative leaders have said they will look at "adjustments" to Propositions 134 and 135, The Colorado Sun reported. Supporters of the measures in both states say any rollback would override voters who have just spoken.

The central question now is less whether the measures passed than whether they will survive in the form voters approved. The answer differs by state, because only one of the five measures was written into a state constitution.

This story follows our earlier explainer on the four sex-based school sports measures before the vote, which described what each one would do.

What passed, and by how much#

The sports measures passed everywhere they appeared, with margins ranging from about four points in Colorado to more than 35 points in Nebraska. Colorado's separate ban on certain surgeries for minors also passed narrowly. In Missouri, voters rejected a constitutional amendment that paired a ban on gender-transition treatment for minors with a repeal of the state's 2024 abortion-rights amendment.

Nebraska Initiative 442

67.8%

Arizona Prop. 318

58.7%

Washington I-638

56.01%

Colorado Prop. 134

52.2%

Colorado Prop. 135

51.9%

Missouri Amendment 3

44.6%

Source: NBC News/AP results (AZ, CO, MO), Spokesman-Review/AP results (WA), Nebraska Secretary of State (NE)

Show the numbers

Measure	Yes
Nebraska Initiative 442	67.8%
Arizona Prop. 318	58.7%
Washington I-638	56.01%
Colorado Prop. 134	52.2%
Colorado Prop. 135	51.9%
Missouri Amendment 3	44.6%

The Nebraska figure comes from the Secretary of State's results page, which on Nov. 9 showed 499,137 votes for Initiative 442 and 236,941 against, with all 1,322 precincts reporting. Washington's I-638 had 1,648,970 yes votes and 1,295,353 no votes in the Nov. 7 count published by The Spokesman-Review. The Arizona and Colorado shares come from AP results published by NBC News, which showed about 98% of the expected vote counted in each state on Monday morning.

Ballotpedia describes these as the first statewide ballot measures on either sex-based school sports or medical procedures for transgender minors. Before the election, it counted 29 states with laws, regulations or athletic association rules limiting girls' teams to students of the female sex, and 27 states with laws barring surgical procedures for transgender minors.

The measures were not uniform. Arizona's Proposition 318 goes beyond sports to cover restrooms and locker rooms, defining sex by the original birth certificate, according to Ballotpedia's summary. Colorado's Proposition 134 defines sex by reproductive system and leaves verification procedures to schools. Washington's I-638 is the only one whose official text, as quoted by The Guardian, requires girls to "verify biological sex," which can include confirming "reproductive anatomy," "genetic makeup" or testosterone levels. The text, as quoted by the conservative blog Legal Insurrection, calls for a statement signed by the student's personal health care provider "as part of the routine sports physical examination." It does not specify how the provider confirms anatomy, which is the gap the two campaigns now read differently.

Washington: a lawsuit before Dec. 3#

The Washington challenge is the most immediate. A source familiar with the planning told The Guardian that the coalition includes the ACLU of Washington, Planned Parenthood and No Hate in Washington State, the campaign that opposed I-638, and that it plans to file before the Dec. 3 enforcement date. No complaint had been filed as of Monday morning, based on available reporting, so the precise legal claims are not yet public.

According to The Guardian, advocates see the state courts as the likeliest venue. They point to Washington's constitutional privacy protections, which the state Supreme Court has read more broadly than the federal Constitution, including in a 2008 ruling against random drug tests of student athletes. The same source said the measure's requirement that girls, but not boys, verify their sex might conflict with federal precedent, but that the U.S. Supreme Court is a less attractive venue given its recent rulings.

Opponents' main factual objection concerns verification. "There are parents that are going to be asking, 'Is my kid going to have to have a choice of dropping their pants in front of a complete stranger or missing the track season?' We don't know the answer right now," Lexi Koren, a spokesperson for No Hate in Washington State, told The Guardian. Libby Watson, the campaign's manager, said in a statement reported by The Spokesman-Review that "trans girls are the most impacted," but that the measure "has the potential to harm any girl who wishes to play sports through its invasive exam requirements."

Brian Heywood, founder of Let's Go Washington, the conservative group that sponsored I-638, said on election night that the result showed girls "that well over a million Washingtonians stand with them and care that their sports are safe and fair." He told KVI radio that he expected a court challenge and that he expected state schools chief Chris Reykdal "to follow the frickin' law," according to KVI. Heywood also called on Attorney General Nick Brown to defend the measure in court and on Gov. Bob Ferguson to respect the result.

That last request matters because the officials Heywood named would be the state's natural defenders in any suit, and none of them campaigned for the initiative. Available reporting does not show that Brown, Ferguson or Reykdal has said how the state will respond to a challenge. If the state's elected officials decline to mount a full defense, the question of who argues for the law in court could itself become contested.

Colorado: the legislature can rewrite both measures#

Colorado's path runs through the statehouse rather than the courthouse. Propositions 134 and 135 amend state statutes, not the constitution, so the legislature can change or repeal them by simple majority, The Colorado Sun explained. Democrats were on track for supermajorities in both chambers after the same election.

"We're going to have to take a look at these anti-trans measures and what adjustments are necessary and appropriate," Weiser told reporters on Nov. 4, according to the Sun. He said he did not think it was acceptable to require every student on a gendered team, including college athletes, to have their sex checked, and he argued that "sometimes something is passed and it is incomplete. It is not administrable." Proposition 134 assigns enforcement to the education commissioner but does not say how students would be checked or how a challenge to an athlete's eligibility would be resolved.

Erin Lee, who leads Protect Kids Colorado, the group behind both measures, rejected the premise. "No one is advocating for invasive examinations of children, nor have they occurred anywhere in the majority of states that already have this law," she told the Sun. She said Weiser "doesn't get to celebrate the will of the voters when it puts him in office and disregard that same will when it produces a result he doesn't like," calling that an attempt "to circumvent" democracy.

Within the Democratic majority, the response is not settled. Senate President James Coleman told the Sun that "I don't think it's going to be a light decision," and that lawmakers will have to balance the will of voters against the rights of the people affected. State Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a candidate for House speaker, said she was working with opponents of the measures on next steps. Activists protested over the weekend for full repeal, Law Dork reported. Weiser pointed to the legislature's 2023 rewrite of the 2022 psychedelics initiative as precedent for amending a voter-approved statute.

Proposition 135 raises separate questions. The Sun reported that its wording could reach some surgeries on minors who are not transgender, and that hospitals had been waiting for the result before analyzing its effect. Both measures are scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

Arizona and Nebraska: harder to change#

The other two states offer opponents fewer options. Nebraska's Initiative 442 is a constitutional amendment, which means the legislature cannot undo it, as Law Dork's Chris Geidner noted; it also reinforced a ban that was already in state statute. Arizona's Proposition 318 is statutory, and it passed by about 17 points. The reporting reviewed for this story did not identify an announced legislative effort or lawsuit to undo it.

What the vote does and does not show about opinion#

The ballot results are the most direct evidence available of how voters in these five states view these specific proposals. They are consistent with national polling. In Gallup's May 1–18, 2025 Values and Beliefs survey of 1,003 U.S. adults, conducted by phone with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, 69% said transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on teams that match their birth sex and 24% said they should be able to play on teams matching their gender identity. That view was held by 90% of Republicans, 72% of independents and 41% of Democrats, and Gallup found support for the gender-identity option had fallen 10 points since 2021.

The results do not show a single national mood on transgender policy. The same electorates handed Democrats a wave: they won control of the Senate, elected Weiser by a wide margin, and in Washington rejected Let's Go Washington's two other initiatives, including the parental-rights measure that opponents had described as outing transgender students. Missouri voters rejected the combined abortion and gender-care amendment by about 11 points, though because the measure combined two subjects, the result cannot be read as a verdict on gender care alone. Vermont voters approved an equal-protection amendment with 78.6% of the vote, according to the AP results.

Advocates on each side have read the split differently. Geidner argued the results show "these were not, putting Nebraska aside, the blowout issues that anti-trans groups have insisted they are," pointing to the narrow Colorado margins. Heywood said on election night that the outcome "begins to put a nail in the coffin of this really terrible idea that boys should be allowed into girls' spaces," as KVI reported. Both are interpretations; neither is established by the vote counts alone. Inferring a trend from a handful of ballot measures, in either direction, would be a hasty generalization.

The federal backdrop#

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed states to limit girls' teams by biological sex, but it has not ruled on whether states may let transgender students compete according to gender identity. Geidner reported that an emergency application from Washington state had been fully briefed at the Court since Oct. 15 with no order. In New York, a state appeals court ruled last week that the state's own civil rights law barred Nassau County's restrictions, a case we covered in our report on the Nassau ruling. That decision rested on state law, the same kind of argument Washington's opponents now plan to make.

Federal policy is also in flux on medical care for minors. A federal judge in New Hampshire is weighing a challenge to a Medicaid rule that cuts off funding for gender-transition care for minors, which we covered in our story on Goe v. HHS.

What to watch#

In Washington, the first test is whether the coalition files before Dec. 3, whether it asks a court to block enforcement, and who defends the measure. In Colorado, the legislature convenes in January, after both measures take effect, so any rewrite would amend laws already in force. Jaelynn Scott, elected last week as Washington's first openly transgender state legislator, told The Guardian that "if for some reason the legal challenge doesn't work, then in the state legislature we damn sure are going to repeal that law in two years." Supporters in both states have signaled they will treat any such move as a fight over respect for the ballot, which sets up a second round of this debate for 2027 and 2028.

Differing perspectives

Should the voter-approved limits on transgender students in girls' sports in Washington and Colorado take effect as written?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Block them in court or repeal them

  Who holds it: No Hate in Washington State, the ACLU of Washington, Gender Justice League, Rep.-elect Jaelynn Scott and Colorado repeal activists

  Opponents argue the measures single out transgender girls, a small group of students, and that Washington's version goes further by requiring every girl to verify her sex, which they say could mean intrusive checks of reproductive anatomy. They point to Washington's constitutional privacy protections and anti-discrimination law, and say state courts should block I-638 before Dec. 3. If courts do not, they say legislators should repeal it, as Washington and Colorado law allow for statutes.

  In their words: The Guardian (statements by No Hate in Washington State and advocates) ↗

• Enforce the measures as voters approved them

  Who holds it: Let's Go Washington, Protect Kids Colorado and the measures' supporters, including some girl athletes and parents

  Supporters argue that voters in both states settled the question directly, after years in which legislators would not act, and that elected officials now have a duty to carry out and defend the result. They say separate girls' teams exist to give girls fair competition and safe play, that more than a million Washingtonians agreed, and that the fear of invasive exams is overstated because no such exams have occurred in the majority of states with similar laws. Rewriting the measures, they say, would disregard the voters.

  In their words: 570 KVI (interview with Let's Go Washington founder Brian Heywood) ↗

• Keep the policy but amend how it works

  Who holds it: Colorado Gov.-elect Phil Weiser and some Democratic legislative leaders

  A third group argues that lawmakers should respect that voters approved the measures while fixing provisions it considers incomplete or unworkable. Weiser says Proposition 134 does not explain how eligibility would be checked or challenged and that sex checks for every athlete, including college students, are unacceptable. Senate President James Coleman says legislators must weigh the will of voters against the rights of affected students, pointing to earlier legislative revisions of voter-approved laws.

  In their words: The Colorado Sun (remarks by Phil Weiser and James Coleman) ↗

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