MAGA millionaire using Washington state anti-trans ballot measures to gain tax cut

According to LGBTQNation, a millionaire hedge fund manager and ally of Donald Trump is behind two Washington state anti-trans ballot measures in a scheme which could get him a tax cut and girl athletes subjected to genital tests.

 Brian Heywood, a hedge fund manager and close ally of President Donald Trump, is the “villain we’re up against,” Libby Watson, campaign manager for No Hate in WA State, tells LGBTQ Nation. That organization is the collection of non-profits, parents, medical professionals, students and teachers arrayed against Heywood’s self-funded right-wing political action committee, Let’s Go Washington. 

The group is behind two initiatives that Watson and No Hate are organizing against. 

 Initiative 638 would ban trans girls from school sports with a requirement for genital exams or other forms of testing to confirm the sex of every girl in the state who wants to play sports. Initiative 001 outs LGBTQ+ students to families, repeals records protections from the victims of child abuse, and opens confidential school meetings between students and counselors for inspection. 

 Together, they’re a one-two punch attacking what MAGA supporters of the anti-LGBTQ+ Let’s Go campaign characterize as “gender ideology” and the “transgender agenda.” 

According to the article, there is a third component to the anti-trans ballot measures.

After qualifying the two culture war initiatives for the ballot, Heywood ran a separate signature-gathering campaign to qualify Initiative 645, which would repeal the millionaires’ tax recently passed by the Washington legislature that established a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million per year. Let’s Go Washington is packaging all three together in their Yes campaign. 

 “Ultimately, what he really cares about is not being taxed, and so he’s using students, the trans kids, LGBTQ+ youth as a scapegoat to rile up his base with the hope that he can turn out enough conservatives and persuade enough voters to vote yes on all three initiatives,” Watson says. “It’s not about fairness in girls’ sports.”

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