News Flash… Anchorage Anti-Trans Ballot Shot Down In Flames!

The ballot initiative that would have repealed the city ordinance that prohibited discrimination against us in Anchorage Alaska has been defeated.

Anti-transgender discrimination loses in Alaska vote
It's a significant reversal from Anchorage's last LGBTQ vote in 2012.
Think Progress
By Zack Ford
April 4, 2018

According to preliminary tallies from the city’s first mail-in election, voters in Anchorage, Alaska appear to have defeated Proposition 1, a controversial measure which would have licensed and mandated discrimination against transgender people.

Tuesday was the last day for voters to postmark their ballots, but according to the significant number of votes already cast (23 percent of all registered voters), the measure is losing by a 54-46 margin. Outlets in the area are unofficially calling Prop 1 defeated.

The opposition used all the dirty tricks to create fear, but the voter would  have none of it.

In response to Prop 1, LGBTQ advocates tackled the bathroom myths head-on, running ads that specifically countered their opponents’ fear-mongering. This was a significant change in strategy from the last such fight, the referendum on Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). In that 2015 fight, those defending the city’s LGBTQ protections only ran one ad that included a transgender person, and none of the ads directly responded to conservatives’ bathroom narratives.

They got quashed by almost 10 percentage points. The voters would have none of their hate and fear!

Proponents of the discriminatory measure were also hopeful that the margin would narrow as the day went on. It’s unclear when the final call will be made.

Let us hope that in November the voters in Massachusetts also make the right decision and not succumb to the hate and fear.