Eli Erlick was 8 years old when he became she.

At school in Mendocino County, she was bullied for being “the girl on the boys’ team” and endured constant thirst to avoid being harassed in the boys’ restroom and kicked out of the girls’ restroom.

When California made history in August by becoming the first state to mandate that elementary and secondary schools allow transgender students to participate in sex-segregated programs and activities and to use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, Erlick went to Gov. Jerry Brown’s office and personally thanked his staff.

“I was ecstatic!” she said.

Voters, however, will get the final say on whether the School Success and Opportunity Act, AB 1266, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2014.

If opponents gather 505,000 valid signatures on a petition by the end of this week, they can challenge the law through a ballot measure in the Nov. 4, 2014, general election. As of Tuesday, the Privacy for All Students campaign said it had hit that 505,000 signatures mark, but it still has a substantial number to collect above that by Friday because the verification process often disqualifies many signatures.

Many of the same conservative and religious organizations that took the fight against same-sex marriage all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court are behind the referendum against AB 1266.

“There’s no reason that a young girl should be subjected to an anatomical male in school showers or bathrooms — it’s just not appropriate,” said Frank Schubert, who is managing the Privacy For All Students campaign.

“It’s an insult to the intelligence of Californians — the idea that you have to open up the most sensitive private areas of schools, like showers, bathrooms, lockers and changing areas, to the opposite sex when we’ve already passed numerous laws to protect transgender students against discrimination or bullying.”

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills accused the governor of launching “a dangerous social experiment” that would expose “both gender-stable and gender-confused children” to a “very bizarre environment” that is “going to create brutality and violence.”

“What if a 16-year-old boy goes into the girls’ shower room and gets aroused, and one of the girls tells her boyfriend that ‘Johnny’ just took a peek at her?” Hibbs said. “Oh, my gosh, it’s going to be a violent, tragic affair.”

Heeding Hibbs’ sermons, 17-year-old Ayala High School senior Victoria Aguirre has been distributing fliers on campus, urging support for the petition.

“I think that this law should definitely be overturned,” she said. “It’s an invasion of my privacy to have a boy inside of the girls’ restroom or locker room.”

Lady Cage-Barile, a teacher in Inglewood, has been collecting signatures at community meetings, grocery stores and in front of the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

She warned AB 1266 is “a dangerous and very invasive law” that would not prevent bullying but cause it.

“Imagine a fifth-grade boy going into a restroom with a second-grade girl,” she said. “Do you know how timid and embarrassed and shy those girls are at that age? This is going to stop them from going to the restroom because a boy who may be as tall as their dad will be in the restroom with them.”

But Sarah Warbelow, state legislative director of the Human Rights Campaign, based in Washington D.C., rejected that argument.

“The children who are truly at risk here are transgender students who are forced to use restrooms not consistent with their gender identification,” she said.

“Let’s say a transgender student is presenting as female, with long hair, feminine clothing, nail polish,” Warbelow added. “If you’re asking her to use the boy’s bathroom, she’s the one who’s in significant danger.”

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey, a joint project of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality, found 78 percent of transgender students in K-12 had been harassed on the basis of their gender identity.

It escalated to physical assault for about 35 percent of those surveyed. About 15 percent found the harassment so unbearable that they left school to escape.

The study found transgender students who were subjected to harassment had lower GPAs, were more likely to miss school out of concern for their safety, and less likely to plan on continuing their education.

Most alarmingly, about half of those who were bullied reported attempting suicide.

Proponents of AB 1266 have launched a countercampaign, Support All Students and argue that similar policies for transgender students have been adopted by school districts in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Washington.

At LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district, transgender students have been allowed since 2005 to join programs and use facilities consistent with their gender identity, believing they have a better chance of success when they can be themselves and participate fully in school without shame and stigma.

“The way we treat our transgender children is the same way we treat all the other children,” said LAUSD’s Human Relations, Diversity and Equity Program Director Judy Chiasson.

She added that in the eight years that the policy has been in place, LAUSD has experienced no problems with it.

“When I meet with parents who are concerned, I tell them, ‘Listen, 99 percent of the time, you will never know that you are using the bathroom with someone who’s transgender’,” she said.

Opponents of AB 1266 said they are sympathetic to the plight of transgender students who are bullied but said the solution is to allocate bathrooms specially for them, or repeal the law altogether.

Even though it will not benefit her, as she is now an 18-year-old freshman at Pitzer College in Claremont, Erlick hopes the law will stand, for the sake of younger transgender students.

“When I was in school, I had such a difficult time,” she said. “I was forced into classes and programs with the boys and that led to a lot of bullying.”

“I felt like there was something wrong with me, and it was very hard emotionally,” Erlick added.

Chiasson said overturning AB 1266 would send a message that it’s acceptable to discriminate against children.

“Part of our Constitution and the principles of America is that we do not compromise the rights of the individual for the comfort of the others,” she said.

“Our history is littered with many times where we have violated the dignity of rights of individuals for the comfort of others, and that’s a practice that as Americans we need to stop.”