Opponents of conservative-backed initiatives to undo changes to the rights of parents and public school students and restrict the participation of transgender girls in sports officially launched their campaign to defeat the ballot measures this week.
The No Hate in WA State campaign argues the two Let’s Go Washington initiatives would invade children’s privacy, vilify transgender youth and leave vulnerable kids unwilling to seek help when needed. A few hundred people attended the campaign kickoff Wednesday night at Seattle club Neumos, organizers said.
“We have to balance the rights of loving parents with the additional life-saving duty to protect the safety of youth who are victims of domestic violence and child abuse,” said King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, a Democrat. “There is no easy answer here. There’s no magic bullet, but I can tell you these poorly written and reckless initiatives do not meet that balance.”
More than $1 million has already poured into the campaign against the initiatives, with large sums coming from unions and the American Civil Liberties Union.
IL26-001 looks to eliminate changes Democratic lawmakers made in 2025 to a Let’s Go Washington initiative on the rights of parents of public school students that the Legislature approved a year earlier.
The group’s 2024 proposal aimed to ensure parents can easily access school materials and their child’s medical records, among other things. One of the most significant changes in the 2025 law, which was recently upheld in court, was to remove parental access to medical records.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle, said the initiative “forces our schools to out LGBTQIA+ kids to the very families that might throw them out.”
The other ballot measure, IL26-638, would bar transgender K-12 students from competing in girls’ sports. It would accomplish this by confirming children’s sex assigned at birth through routine athletic physicals. A flyer handed out at Wednesday’s event says Brian Heywood, the financier leading the Let’s Go Washington political committee, “wants the state to look at our kids’ genitals.”
Let’s Go Washington sees the measure as a way to restore fairness to competition, despite just a handful of transgender students reportedly participating in girls’ sports across Washington.
A similar proposal will be on the ballot in Colorado this year. An initiative in Maine to limit what school sports teams, bathrooms, and locker rooms trans students can access has been the subject of a legal fight after the secretary of state there invalidated it.
Jayapal, who has a transgender child, said Heywood wants to “bring the hate that they’ve been trying to spread in Congress, and across the country” into Washington state.
Heywood countered Thursday that the opposition campaign is “literally fueled by hate.”
“Hate for strong and informed families, hate for female athletes, and hate for Washingtonians who disagree with them,” he said in a statement.
“Our campaign is just the opposite: we are standing for girls who are being told their safe spaces and opportunities don’t matter if boys want to take them,” Heywood continued. “We’re fighting for parents who are being cut out of decisions and conversations about their own children because the state thinks it does a better job caretaking.”
The campaign to come
Both of the Let’s Go Washington measures started as initiatives to the Legislature. Majority Democrats declined to take them up, sending the issues to the ballot in November. Though that didn’t stop initiative supporters from holding “listening sessions” at the Capitol earlier this year.
No Hate in WA State has raised $736,000 this year in its fight against the initiatives, with big backing from teacher unions, including the National Education Association and its Washington state branch. The American Civil Liberties Union, Gender Justice League and the Service Employees International Union 775, made up of caregivers, are among the other major donors.
Last year, the campaign brought in more than $400,000. It has spent $383,000 in 2026.
Wednesday’s event was an attempt to drive further donations to the campaign. Zahilay made the pitch: $50 would pay for a few campaign yard signs, $250 a phonebank shift, $500 a batch of targeted mailers, and $5,000 a field organizer’s monthly salary. Jayapal said her campaign is kicking in $5,000.
Jaelynn Scott, the executive director of the trans advocacy organization Lavender Rights Project, said the campaign is not just about battling transphobia.
“It’s about money in politics, and the ability of one rich man … to usurp our democracy,” said Scott, who is running as a Democrat to replace south Seattle Rep. Chipalo Street in the state Legislature. Street, who is also a Democrat, is running for an open Senate seat.
By comparison, Let’s Go Washington has brought in over $1.9 million, and spent most of that. Heywood’s organization is also putting its cash toward a potential ballot challenge to the new state income tax on millionaire earners.
Since the beginning of the year, Let’s Go Washington has gotten money from over 2,200 “small dollar donors,” said spokesperson Hallie Herzberg. Referring to two of the labor unions opposing the ballot measures, she said the group will raise as much as necessary to “combat the spending behemoths of the SEIU and WEA.”
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