We’ve received multiple reports of an I-1515 signature gatherer using dubious methods to get Capitol Hill passersby to sign for the proposed anti-trans ballot measure. According to these reports, the signature gatherer stood outside the Broadway-Pike QFC with a clipboard full of progressive causes on top of the I-1515 petition last week.
Just Want Privacy, the group behind proposed anti-trans ballot measure I-1515, did not respond to a request for comment on these reports, but here’s one example:
This past Sunday, I was approached by a signature gatherer in front of QFC on Broadway and Pike. She asked me to sign a slough of petitions for various benign and progressive causes, like raising the state minimum wage, and getting big money out of politics. I signed a few of them — although I was baffled and increasingly annoyed that she kept coming with more petitions. Finally the seventh (!!!) and final one she tried to sneak on me was I-1515, which I did not know by name [then]. Instead I had to read the legal language of the petition and slowly figured out that this asshole was trying to fool me into signing a transphobic petition buried under a bunch of progressive ones. Could this be a new campaign tactic? In any case, I was so stunned, all I could say was “I’m not signing this.” But then I spent the next several hours feeling sick in my stomach. I wish I had the chance to say something like “Our community is in severe grief right now, so get the fuck out of Capitol Hill with this bigoted bullshit.”
A Stranger employee was also asked to sign for I-1515 at the same location after being told it was a “fair vote for coed bathrooms.” Reddit users have been circulating a warning about similar behavior from I-1515 signature gatherers.
Just Want Privacy’s Facebook page has reported that the initiative has 130,000 of the 246,000 signatures it needs to qualify for the November ballot. I-1515 signature gatherers will be out this weekend for Seattle Seafair, the Greenwood Car Show, the Urban Crafts Uprising, and the Shoreline Arts Festival. If a signature gatherer tells you the I-1515 initiative is a “fair vote for coed bathrooms” or somehow protects trans rights, they’re lying.
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