ALBANY (AP) — Democrats pushed to get a constitutional amendment on the New York ballot because they believed it could energize liberals eager to protect abortion rights. Republicans now hope the same amendment will ignite a fire among people upset about transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Voters will decide on Nov. 5 whether to approve the state’s proposed “Equal Rights Amendment,” which has already been the subject of a court battle over its broad language. The amendment, dubbed “Proposition 1” on the ballot, has emerged as one of the most unusual ideological battles of the 2024 election season, in part because of disagreements over what it will do if passed.

On paper, the proposed amendment would expand a section of the state constitution that now says a person cannot be denied civil rights because of their race, creed or religion. The new language will also prohibit discrimination based on national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcome or “reproductive health care and autonomy.”

While much of the news coverage of the amendment has focused on how it could protect abortion rights, Republicans have run a messaging campaign warning that banning discrimination based on someone’s “gender expression” would create a constitutional right for transgender athletes to play on girls. sports teams.

“The consequences of changing the state constitution are drastic,” said Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman and gubernatorial candidate who is a leading critic of the amendment.

The leading group opposing the amendment, the Coalition for the Protection of Children-NY, held rallies across the state and ran ads against the proposal, which said the ban on discrimination based on “national origin” could allow non-citizens to vote and that the amendment would it also affects parents’ right to have a say in their child’s medical care.

People who support the amendment say the group is trying to mislead voters.

State courts have ruled that other parts of the state constitution already bar noncitizens from voting. The New York Bar Association said nothing about the amendment would wipe out existing state laws requiring parental consent for a child’s medical care.

“It’s really looking to distract, to divide, to change the subject,” said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Center for Women’s Leadership at NYU Law School. “I think New Yorkers will be able to get through it.”

Supporters of the proposed amendment say it’s true that a constitutional ban on discrimination based on someone’s “gender identity” would benefit transgender people, including trans athletes, though not in the dramatic way opponents suggest.

State law already provides similar antidiscrimination protections to all public school students, said Katharine Bodde, acting co-policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. Under those laws, she said, transgender people already have the right to play on sports teams that match their gender identity, she argued. But those protections would become codified in the state constitution, making it more difficult for a future legislature to change the law.

“Opponents who fearmonger about the few students who already participate in sports are dangerous and preying on a vulnerable population of children,” Bodde told The Associated Press.

One of the most populous counties outside of New York City recently passed legislation barring teams with transgender athletes from using any facilities in the county unless the team is designated as coed.

A court battle is underway to determine whether this Nassau County ban violates existing state law. The New York attorney general said yes.

County attorneys argued in a court filing that the ban is not discriminatory because it does not exclude transgender women and girls from the sport, but rather requires them to play in a mixed league “with those of the same physical ability, strength, speed, force, so as not to dominate women’s sport.”

It’s also plausible that the amendment, if passed, would become a factor in whether New York lawmakers ever decide to join the 25 states that have passed laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transsexual minors. Supporters of the amendment said it would outlaw discriminatory health care bans. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in its new mandate on whether such bans enacted elsewhere are unconstitutional or violate federal law.

On abortion, there has already been some debate in the courts about what Proposition 1 will and won’t do.

Democrats in the state legislature voted to put the amendment on the 2024 ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Supporters of the amendment say that while its language does not explicitly enshrine the right to terminate a pregnancy, it would create a legal framework under which future restrictions on abortion would be interpreted by courts as an unconstitutional form of discrimination.

In a recent ruling, however, a state judge noted that its actual impact was not so clear.

Judge David A. Weinstein rejected a request that written materials be given to voters at the polls, saying the amendment would protect abortion rights, in part because of its nonspecific language. He predicted it would be the subject of a future legal tussle.

“I lack the crystal ball to predict how the proposed amendment will be interpreted in certain contexts,” he wrote.

New York state law currently allows access to abortion until fetal viability, which is usually between 24 and 26 weeks.

Nevada voters approved similar constitutional language in 2022 to prohibit discrimination “regardless of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.”

That amendment was then cited in a lawsuit that overturned a state ban on Medicaid coverage of abortion services, a court ruled that the policy violated the amendment’s sex discrimination provision.

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This story corrects that Nassau is among the most populous counties in New York, not the most populous.

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