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[Image]As you read this post, the signatures that were collected in the effort by the haters to put a Repeal AB 1266 initiative on the ballot in the 2014 election cycle are being verified and counted.

So what is AB 1266?   It's the School Success And Opportunity Act, the bill passed by the California Assembly and signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown (D) that restates the obligation of California schools to allow transgender students to participate in all school activities, programs, and facilities. 

It also reaffirms to school districts, teachers, parents and students that California’s nondiscrimination law not only covers trans students, it requires public schools to respect a transgender student’s identity in all school programs, activities, and facilities. This bill will simply ensure that transgender boys and girls are treated just like all other boys and girls so that they can participate fully in school activities and graduate on time.

But the haters, including the Family Research Council, the Pacific Justice Institute and the California Republican Party despise AB 1266 and have been organizing to kill it by any means necessary including lies, disinformation, demonizing and bullying trans students.

For the moment the news is encouraging from the Left Coast.  As the referendum against AB 1266 proceeds to random sample, the proponents operating under the Orwellian name of Privacy For All Students, would need 92.1% validity to qualify the measure for the November 2014 ballot. So far the smaller California counties that have submitted their full validation have had 72.49% validity rates.

But my inquiring mind is asking this question.  Which of those 58 California counties were the ones that failed to make the validity threshold?  Did they include any of the more populous California counties like Alameda (Oakland), San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange (Anaheim), San Diego, Contra Costa, Riverside (Palm Springs), San Bernadino, Fresno, Santa Barbara,  Solano, San Mateo, Santa Clara (San Jose), and Sacramento just to name a few?

We trans peeps can't allow ourselves to be tempted to take the tranquilizing drug of complacency in this situation or relax until the California Attorney General's office utters the words, "It failed'.  

We need to be ready to jump into political combat mode if it doesn't. 

I know the San Francisco based Transgender Law Center is monitoring the situation, but what happens if the haters do get enough signatures to trigger a referendum to repeal AB 1266, and are they and our California allies doing enough to plan for what they do if that happens?  
 
[Image]I've always been a prepare for the worst case scenario while hoping for and working toward the best case outcome kind of girl, and worst case scenario in this instance would be they get enough signature to trigger the repeal referendum.

So what needs to happen if they do?   First order of political business is this AB 1266 repeal referendum must be spectacularly defeated and die a politically painful death. We must send the message that their bathroom demonization tactics and lies to oppose trans rights, which is the only thing they have left to oppose trans human rights laws, will not succeed at the ballot box.

At that moment that the Repeal AB 1266 referendum is approved this becomes not just a California issue, but a political and movement one for the entire US trans community we must win.   It's also an issue that will require a national level response to it. 

We know for a fact that once they get the word, the haters will be mobilizing if they aren't already to pour every dollar and fly every conservative hate activist and field organizer west to California. 

Cali Gay, Inc peeps, they won't all be white either.   To give the overwhelmingly white conservafools and money behind the effort a veneer of diversity, they will find useful fools like Jesse Lee Peterson down in LA and other non-white sellouts to shill for this Kill AB 1266 effort.   They will find cookie-chomping knee-grow pastors willing to sell out the Black and Latino trans community for their media face time and 40 pieces of silver.

The haters are definitely going to be bankrolled by out of state interests and flying in conservafool carpetbaggers to help them, so y'all better be prepared to counter that.  You need to be prepared to do the same simply because you will be justified in doing so to defend AB 1266.

You should not hesitate in IMMEDIATELY asking for national and INTERNATIONAL help and money from the trans community and our allies.  You should be putting together now your lists of liberal progressive churches, pastors, Hollywood actors, athletes and politicians, and double checking to make sure they are ethnically and regionally diverse.  

From the millisecond the referendum gets cleared by the Cali Attorney General's office you need to pounce on and utterly destroy to the point they are radioactive the bathroom meme and all the other scare tactics the wingers are going to throw at it because it's the only way they can be successful.

[Image]You need to find the Cali trans kids like Ashton Lee who fought to get it passed and who benefit from the law.  Give them face time along with cisgender kids and parents willing to rebut the lies of the haters that they are 'doing this for all California children'. 

Make sure your California media buys reach Black, Asian and Latino voters and places besides the LA and San Francisco metro areas. 

Don't be afraid to go for the right wing jugular because you've not only have the moral high ground, you got to be in it to win it.  

Cali transpeople, you need to do your part to help defeat the haters too.  T-bills need to be donated to the coalition when it forms.  If you can't give cash, sweat equity is also needed in the form of volunteers to phone bank, canvass, register voters, staff offices, and Get Out The Vote mobilization on election day to defeat it.   Get informed about AB 1266 and go to war in the comment threads of your local newspapers to counter the lies the haters will be trying to spread.

You must do the little things to win the hearts and minds of undecided voters.  Attention to details like that may help you defeat the hate referendum.

And when you build that diverse intersectional coalition to defeat this repeal effort, in addition to making sure it is properly funded and the money raised is spent wisely, hire some trans peeps in the getting paid positions to help coordinate strategy for this AB 1266 defense effort .  We are the people best qualified to talk about our lives and come up with the necessary talking points to come up with a clear message about us. 

We transpeeps (for a fee) can also tell you what NOT to say either.

It's also personal for us transpeople, too.   I have some other ideas, but they will only be released to the Defend AB 1266 coalition or whatever name they come up for it should that become necessary.

Hopefully you learned your lessons from the failed 2008 Prop 8 efforts, but just in case you forgot them, just wanted to make sure you didn't frack stuff up in this critical effort in 2014 that trans people will need you to win, preferably in a decisive manner should it come to pass.