1. United States
2. Mich.
3. Letter

A person's existence isn't up for debate, and a majority shouldn't get to vote on a minority group's rights. The coordinated push to put anti-trans restrictions on ballots in Colorado, Washington, Maine, and Missouri isn't grassroots democracy — it's the same 2004 playbook used to strip same-sex couples of marriage rights, updated for a new target. In 2004, same-sex marriage bans passed in all 11 states where they appeared on the ballot. We know how that story goes. Advocates defeated roughly 90 percent of the 700-plus anti-trans bills introduced in state legislatures last year. So organizers moved to the ballot box, where they can bypass those defeats and put civil rights to a popular vote. Colorado's Initiative 110 would ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors that major pediatric hospitals in the state don't even perform. Missouri's Amendment 3 bundles anti-trans care restrictions with abortion rollbacks specifically to drive turnout. These aren't policy debates — they're, as Alana Jochum of Advocates for Trans Equality put it, "an old playbook to scapegoat a small population." The burden of these measures falls on transgender youth and their families. I need you to use every tool available to oppose these initiatives before November 3 and to make clear that constitutional protections for minority communities cannot be undone at the ballot box.