Fairness for Girls petition effort makes general election ballot

A petition effort aiming to instill protections for sex-separate athletics in Nebraska’s constitution will appear on the November ballot.

The Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office announced Friday that it has certified enough signatures for the Fairness for Girls petition effort to appear on the ballot in the general election.

The effort is aiming to “establish constitutional protections for sex-separate athletics to ensure equal access to athletic opportunities for females.”

Athletic teams or sports designated for "females, women, or girls" would "not be open to students of the male sex" under the proposed amendment, though there is no similar language for students of the female sex.

A petition to amend the constitution requires gathering valid signatures from at least 10% of Nebraska’s registered voters – or around 126,000 people.

The Fairness for Girls Constitutional Amendment petition collected at least 138,613 valid signatures, the Secretary of State's Office announced Friday.

Organizers turned in 211,000 signatures in late June.

Julie Slama, a former state senator and one of the leaders behind the petition, said at the time that 211,000 was the largest number of signatures collected for a petition effort in state history.

“We made a little bit of history today,” Slama said. “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 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

The Nebraska Legislature in 2025 passed a law called the “Stand with Women Act” that restricted participation in women's sports teams to athletes who 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."

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.

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. “It’s a lasting decision. And well-funded campaigns like this one are hard to stop at the signature stage.”

The initiative is among those being investigated after fraudulent signatures were discovered in previous petition efforts.