Opponents of California's landmark transgender students' rights law, which ensures that transgender young people have equal access to athletic teams and school facilities, say they have collected the 505,000 signatures necessary to put an initiative to repeal the law on the 2014 ballot.
As the Associated Press notes, now that Privacy for All Students -- the conservative umbrella group behind the initiative -- has submitted the signatures, they will be reviewed to verify their legitimacy. After the initial review, it is likely that the state will order an additional review before the initiative can qualify for the ballot.
"Many people said we had no chance to collect over half a million signatures in just 90 days, but we have proven them wrong by gathering over 115,000 more signatures than the minimum needed," Gina Gleason of the group Faith and Public Policy said of the effort to strip transgender students of the same rights guaranteed to every other student in California.
But transgender rights advocates plan on fighting the initiative, which is being led by the same groups behind Proposition 8 in 2008.
"Protecting this law is our number one priority, and we will put everything we've got into it," John O'Connor, executive director of Equality California, told the Associated Press.
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