Darren Ornitz
The anti-transgender campaign Just Want Privacy has failed to get its initiative, I-1552, on to the Washington State ballot this autumn. This is the second year running the group has failed in its efforts to place an anti-trans initiative on to the ballot.
The Washington Secretary of State’s office announced today that backers of Initiative-1552 canceled their 3PM Friday appointment to turn in 259,622 valid signatures. The group did not offer an explanation why. Last year, it failed to get enough signatures.
The group then failed to submit the requisite number of signatures by the final cut-off time of 5pm. Brian Zylstra, a spokesman at the Washington Secretary of State's office, told the Daily Beast: "I would assume they didn't get enough signatures. I-1552 will not make it on to the ballot." The Daily Beast has reached out for comment from Just Want Privacy.
As The Daily Beast previously reported, I-1552 would have allowed Washingtonians to vote this November to amend the state’s non-discrimination legislation to define terms like “sex” and “gender” based on “the person’s sex or gender as determined or that existed biologically or genetically at the time of a person’s birth,” effectively removing protections for transgender people in facilities like restrooms, locker rooms, and homeless shelters.
I-1552 would have also over-ridden certain portions of local-level non-discrimination legislation that protect transgender people. The initiative would have also segregated multi-stall public school restrooms by birth-assigned sex.
“Anti-equality activists spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attempting to pass a shameful ballot measure aimed at discriminating against LGBTQ people, but thanks to the fair-minded people of Washington State, they have failed,” Marty Rouse, HRC National Field Director, said in a statement.
—Tim Teeman