(JUST THE NEWS) – Activists failed to gather enough signatures for a ballot measure that would have required parental notification for children requesting gender changes at school, prevented transgender students who were born as males from competing in girls’ sports, and banned the use of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and genital change surgeries for minors.
Parent activist group Protect Kids California launched their initiative last summer and collected more than 400,000 signatures, approximately 150,000 short of the 546,651 minimum required to make it on the state ballot. Organizers tend to collect well in excess of the minimum confirmed signatures to account for invalid, duplicate, or incomplete petitions, suggesting the measure may have fallen 200,000-plus signatures short of verification.
“While we are disappointed we didn’t meet the threshold to qualify for the ballot, we are encouraged by the amount of support from every sector of the state,” said Protect Kids California in a news release. “We gathered more signatures for a statewide initiative than any all-volunteer effort in the history of California.”
