New WA initiatives seek to undo rewrite of parental rights law, block trans girls in sports

The conservative political group that has been trying to bolster parental rights in Washington schools will try again.

Let’s Go Washington on Monday announced it will begin gathering signatures for two new initiatives to the state Legislature. One, focused on parental rights, comes after a heated debate on the topic during this year’s legislative session in Olympia. Another looks to block transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports.

The group, led by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, will now need to collect 308,911 signatures by Jan. 2 to get the measures before lawmakers. Though sponsors are advised to submit at least 386,000 signatures to allow room for error if some are ruled invalid.

Last year, legislators approved Let’s Go Washington’s Initiative 2081, which set new requirements for the information schools had to provide to parents. This year, Democratic lawmakers pushed through an overhaul of this “parental bill of rights,” upsetting supporters of the original measure.

The new law, House Bill 1296, took effect immediately upon Gov. Bob Ferguson’s signature in May.

It remains a flashpoint in the debate over gender inclusivity and diversity, equity and inclusion in schools.

Meanwhile, the state’s approach to parental and students’ rights, and related gender issues in schools, has attracted scrutiny from the Trump administration. In the spring, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction over gender inclusion policy.

The new Let’s Go Washington initiative, IL26-001, would repeal the changes House Bill 1296 made to the group’s earlier initiative.

A significant change made this year was removing parental access to student medical records. The law also codified certain student rights and added new parental rights, including for parents to be notified of unexcused absences.

“We don’t co-parent with the government,” Heywood said in a statement. “No government employee can care about or love your child like you do.”

State Rep. Monica Stonier, a Democrat from Vancouver and the lead sponsor on House Bill 1296, said Heywood’s proposal isn’t surprising.

“The Let’s Go Washington team is just not at all interested in talking about the facts around policy,” she said Monday. “They’re more interested in telling stories that can divide our communities.”

During legislative debate on House Bill 1296, the conservative group floated sending an initiative on parental rights directly to voters but abandoned the effort.

Let’s Go Washington’s second new initiative deals with another hot-button issue. IL26-638 would block transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports.

President Donald Trump has made this one of his top social issues. In March, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into the Tumwater School District over allowing a transgender athlete from an opposing team to compete in a girls’ high school basketball game.

Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding to districts that allow transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports. Local school officials have said they’re in a bind: Either comply with state law and jeopardize federal funding, or follow Trump and risk punishment from the state.

Katy Payne, a spokesperson for Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, said the initiatives “sound like a conflict between the interests of a millionaire initiative writer and the members of our Legislature.”

“OSPI will enforce our current laws as we are required to do in a constitutional democracy until Congress, the Legislature, or voters change the law and/or federal courts invalidate Washington state’s laws,” Payne added in an emailed statement.

If an initiative receives the required signatures, lawmakers have a few options. They can pass it as proposed, making it law. They can reject it, sending the measure to the ballot for voters to weigh in at the next general election, which would be November 2026. Or they could pass an alternative to the proposed initiative, which would put both the original and revised versions on the ballot.

As written, both initiatives would face a steep uphill battle to win approval from the Democrat-controlled Legislature, which reconvenes in January for a 60-day session.

A coalition opposed to the initiatives has already launched a campaign against them, dubbed Washington Families for Freedom.

The group said in a statement on Monday that the initiatives would violate students’ privacy, including with “forced invasive medical exams,” increase bullying and decrease access to counseling, and undo a “successful sports inclusion policy that has worked since 2007.”

“These tactics are out of step with Washington’s values and distract from the real issues students face every day,” said Courtney Normand, state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, one of the organizations involved in the opposition campaign.

Let’s Go Washington previously gathered enough signatures to send six initiatives to the Legislature in 2024. Lawmakers approved three, including Initiative 2081, and sent three others to voters, who turned them down. The group also supported Initiative 2066 focused on slowing the state’s shift away from natural gas, which voters passed but is now tied up in court.

As with that previous slate, Let’s Go Washington expects to spend millions of dollars on this campaign.

The group says it is not involved in another conservative-backed initiative to require Washington residents to provide proof of citizenship as part of the voter registration process.

This story was originally published by the Washington State Standard.