‘Fairness for Girls’ organizers turns in 211,000 signatures in effort to make November ballot

The group behind the “Fairness for Girls” petition on Tuesday turned in 211,000 petition signatures in an effort to make Nebraska’s November ballot.

The petition aims to amend the Nebraska Constitution, or create a constitutional amendment, to “establish constitutional protections for sex-separate athletics to ensure equal access to athletic opportunities for females.”

A petition to amend the constitution requires gathering valid signatures from at least 10% of Nebraska’s registered voters – or around 126,000 people. Julie Slama, a former state senator and one of the leaders behind the petition, said the 211,000 total was the largest number of signatures collected for a petition effort in state history.

“We made a little bit of history today,” Slama told Nebraska Public Media News. “We’re absolutely thrilled at the work of hundreds of Nebraska volunteers and thousands of petition signers who put their names to put common-sense protections for girls sports on the ballot in November.”

The May campaign statement submitted to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, or NADC, showed a conservative political action committee, or PAC, called “Restore the Good Life Inc.” contributed at least $3 million to fund the effort. Other contributions came from the Nebraska Family Alliance, a conservative advocacy group.

The Secretary of State’s Office has traditionally finished processing petitions in August or early September. The office has a mid-September deadline to certify the statewide ballot. Slama said organizers will now shift their focus to widespread messaging, letting Nebraska voters know that this will most likely be on their general election ballots.

“Now, stage two of our begins in getting the word out and ensuring that voters have access to the information they need to make an educated choice about whether they should support this common sense constitutional amendment,” Slama said.

The group turned in signatures on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban transgender girls from participating in sports at publicly funded schools. Slama said the weight of both happening today wasn’t lost on her.

“I think this might be the most consequential day for girls’ sports since Title IX was passed,” Slama said. “You have the first state in the country, Nebraska, getting a constitutional amendment to finally enshrine protections for girls and women’s sports on the ballot. You have a highly consequential Supreme Court ruling coming down. Common sense rules the day.”

The Nebraska Legislature in 2025 passed a law called the “Stand with Women Act” that restricted participation in women's sports teams to athletes that have the corresponding sex assigned at birth.

It defined female as “an individual who naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization." The law similarly defined males but replaced the word "eggs" with "sperm."

Out Nebraska, an advocacy group for LGBTQ people, has opposed the petition effort, saying the proposed constitutional amendment would do “real damage” to transgender youths.

“In the same way that law has done real damage to transgender youth in sports, their friends, coaches, and even girls who simply don’t look ‘feminine enough’ in someone else’s eyes, this ballot initiative would double down on that impact. It would take that harm further by embedding exclusion permanently into our state’s highest law, where it would be far harder to undo,” the organization said in March.

“A constitutional amendment is not a policy debate,” the news release wrote. “It’s a lasting decision. And well-funded campaigns like this one are hard to stop at the signature stage.”