Missouri voters reject combined abortion and transgender care ban

Washington approved transgender sports restrictions; Colorado banned gender-affirming surgeries

Missouri voters rejected a ballot initiative that combined a ban on most abortions with a ban on transgender healthcare for minors, while voters in Washington approved restrictions on transgender kids in youth sports. The results came in last week’s midterm election and were reported by Bram Sable-Smith of KFF Health News in a segment that aired on NPR.

Sable-Smith reported from St. Louis. Missouri is often considered a deeply red state, yet its voters turned back the combined ban. Washington, described in the report as often blue in shorthand, approved the transgender sports restrictions.

NPR host Michel Martin, introducing the segment, said Democrats are bolstered by last week’s election results showing support for their candidates across the country. At the state level, however, Democrats are reviewing mixed results on abortion and transgender rights, two issues largely backed by the party, according to Martin.

Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the National Transgender Law Center, said the outcomes show how widely misjudged support for abortion and transgender rights is across state lines. “Our research shows that we greatly underestimate red states’ ability to show up for bodily autonomy and trans rights, and we overestimate blue states,” Chestnut said.

Years before the election, LGBTQ+ advocates in Missouri began going door to door to talk to voters, according to Chestnut. The sustained organizing was prompted by efforts in 28 states, including Missouri, to pass restrictions on transgender healthcare for minors. This year, advocates canvassed targeted voters who are supportive of abortion access but more ambivalent on transgender issues, and Chestnut said the approach paid off.

“And to me, what it says is, we need to build the infrastructure in states, particularly blue states, to defeat these ballot measures,” Chestnut said.

Experts are also working to untangle how motivating abortion and transgender issues really were in the election, according to the report. The question is difficult to answer in Missouri, where the two were explicitly tied together in a single ballot question. A survey of Missouri voters found that voters on both sides said abortion was the most important issue. Transgender issues may not have been what sent people to the polls.

Outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters last week that he knew Republican candidates were in trouble when he saw them spending hundreds of millions of dollars on “transgender ads.” “That was not the issue motivating voters. And it was kind of like an attempt to just scare Republicans to vote,” DeSantis said, in remarks the report took from an archived recording.

Voters still sent mixed signals on ballot measures around the country, Sable-Smith reported. Four states passed restrictions on transgender kids in youth sports. Colorado banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors, and Idaho kept its ban on abortion.