Opponents start ballot effort to dump transgender law

Frank Schubert is the strategist behind both Prop. 8 and the effort to overturn the new law. Frank Schubert is the strategist behind both Prop. 8 and the effort to overturn the new law. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Opponents start ballot effort to dump transgender law 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Californians could face another divisive, expensive battle over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights now that a coalition of conservative groups has hired the veteran GOP strategist behind Proposition 8 - and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars - to qualify a ballot measure that would repeal a new law requiring schools to make accommodations for transgender students.

The law, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed in August, says schools must allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms and play on sports teams that match their gender identification.

Frank Schubert, the Republican political consultant behind both Prop. 8 and the drive to qualify the latest ballot measure, said conservatives and evangelical voters have reacted to the law with "tremendous discomfort" because it opens up "the most sensitive areas of public schools" and threatens parental rights.

A coalition of conservative groups under the umbrella organization Privacy for All Students is circulating 200,000 petitions statewide to qualify a measure invalidating legislation that conservatives have dubbed the "transgender bathroom" law or the "forced coed locker room" law.

Its goal is to gather 505,000 valid signatures by Nov. 12 - which supporters say would stop the law from taking effect in January and allow Californians to vote on the issue in November 2014.

The referendum drive was officially endorsed by California Republican Party delegates at their convention in Anaheim earlier this month.

Prop. 8 forces

Some of the groups involved in the effort were active in Prop. 8, the 2008 state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage. The issue still motivates activists smarting from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to let stand a lower-court ruling invalidating the measure. Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris refused to defend it.

The transgender-student bill by state Sen. Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, was followed by legislation that Brown signed to remove roadblocks to transgender people changing their names and obtaining new identity documents. For evangelicals, it's a disturbing trend.

The Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, whose group is gathering signatures for the ballot drive, said the Ammiano law insults "every mother and father that want their daughter to meet a man ... marry him and have children."

"For a judge to change my birth certificate to female is absolutely lunatic," Sheldon said. "I can tell the judge I'm joining the girls' soccer team so after that game, I can go into the shower room and get my thrills by seeing these young, developing girls.

"It's terrible," Sheldon said. "Just to talk about it is pornographic."

Watching the ballot drive with dismay are moderate gay Republicans who have tried to get their party to move away from social issues in an effort to re-establish the California GOP as politically relevant.

'Another Prop. 8 fight'

"We are now going to have another Prop. 8 fight on our hands," predicted Charles Moran, head of the California Log Cabin Republicans, the GOP gay and lesbian organization.

Moran said the transgender-student law is "bad legislation," because Republican lawmakers were never consulted to help develop a bill that would have been more palatable to conservatives.

Still, he added, "I hope (the signature gathering effort) fails."

His fear, he said, is that it could ramp up some of the same antigay rhetoric during the Prop. 8 battle that equated "gay men and child molesters."

Added protections

State law already prohibited schools from discriminating on the basis of gender identity even before Ammiano's legislation passed.

But supporters like Masen Davis of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco argued that the law gives transgender students more security, protects them from bullying, and takes away barriers to achieving in school or participating on a sports team.

Schubert said opponents are fired up because they firmly believe "we already have laws on the books that provide protections against discrimination. How many times do you have to pass a law that protects against bullying?"

Among those backing the referendum effort are the National Organization for Marriage, the California Catholic Conference and the Pacific Justice Institute, a Christian legal defense group based in Sacramento. All were active in passing Prop. 8.

One of the biggest donors behind Privacy for All Students is financier Sean Fieler of New York-based Equinox Partners, who contributed $80,000 toward the referendum effort.

Fieler previously donated more than $1 million to the National Organization for Marriage to back Prop. 8. He told the New York Times earlier this year that the "gay lifestyle" does not promote "monogamy, stability, health and parenting in the same way heterosexual relationships do."

Jelly Belly money

Other big donors include the Pacific Justice Institute and the 5,000-member, nondenominational Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills (San Bernardino County), each of which gave $10,000. Jelly Belly magnate Herman Rowland gave $5,000.

John O'Connor, head of Equality California - the state's largest group advocating for LGBT rights - said his group has started a counter-effort, SupportAllStudents.org, to combat conservatives' "shrill rhetoric" on the transgender student law.

He called it "alarming and disappointing that ... part of the (Republican) Party would follow fringe hate groups leading this effort."

Ammiano's bill, O'Connor said, was "a restatement of nondiscrimination law" that cannot be undone.

He added, "Don't we have more important things to work on?"