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\n

SEATTLE \u2014 On Thursday, the Washington state House speaker and its Senate president \u2014 likely the country\u2019s first-ever pairing of openly gay state capital legislative leaders \u2014 met to strategize with progressive campaigners against a pair of conservative-backed ballot initiatives that would impose new rules on transgender children in schools and sports.<\/p>\n

To defeat the measures, the campaign will have to convince voters beyond Seattle\u2019s progressive enclaves to accept their arguments about privacy, liberty and acceptance.<\/p>\n

But on Friday, Washington\u2019s LGBTQ+ leaders were thinking about how they might address an even more hard-to-reach constituency: citizens of Egypt and Iran, whose governments criminalize homosexuality but have seen their national teams paired through a scheduling quirk in the World Cup\u2019s only official \u201cPride Match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of Seattle\u2019s World Cup organizing committee set out to make the June 26 game a showcase of the city\u2019s inclusivity before a random draw ensured two of the world\u2019s most repressive states toward sexual minorities would take the field. While FIFA has banned critics of the regime in Tehran from flying the country\u2019s pre-revolutionary flag (under rules prohibiting the display of political symbols), soccer\u2019s governing body hassaid it will permit rainbow flags<\/a> over objections from Iranian and Egyptian soccer officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many opportunities do you have to get positive messages about happy queer people beamed into Iran and Egypt?\u201d said state Senate President Jamie Pedersen. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be any way for people who are watching the game and seeing images of the stands to be able to avoid the fact that there\u2019s going to be a huge contingent of rainbow flags waving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pedersen and House Speaker Laurie Jinkins have known each other since the 1990s, when they first worked together on a failed campaign to pass a statewide non-discrimination law. Both were subsequently elected to the legislature \u2014 she from Tacoma, he from a Seattle district encompassing Capitol Hill, the traditional seat of gay power \u2014 and rose to lead Democratic majorities in their respective chambers. Along the way they became friends, attending each other\u2019s marriages and raising children in parallel.<\/p>\n

Now they are collaborating with the No Hate in WA State campaign to defeat two separate initiatives that will appear on the November ballot after the two leaders refused to take them up in their legislative chambers. One,characterized as a parents-rights measure<\/a>, would allow parents to opt out of classes related to sexual education or gender diversity and compel educators to notify parents if their children request medical attention. Aseparate measure<\/a> would \u201cprohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students\u201d in interscholastic sports, and require girls to receive a medical examination confirming their biological sex.<\/p>\n

Both Pedersen and Jinkins said they expected to build on the coalition that helped enshrine gay and lesbian rights at the ballot, first bypassing a domestic-partnership<\/a> regime in 2009 and then three years later by approving a same-sex marriage law that had passed the legislature before facing a citizen\u2019s-veto threat. (Let\u2019s Go Washington, the campaign committee organized to pass the two transgender-related initiatives this year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we saw, going back to the 1980s and 1990s, is people didn\u2019t think they knew anyone who was gay or lesbian. Once they started to realize they knew people, that started changing opinions dramatically,\u201d said Jinkins. \u201cIt stopped the other side from being able to use stereotypes to characterize us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In interviews Friday morning, both of the legislative leaders cast the day\u2019s unusual Pride matchup \u2014 and its likelihood for friction with soccer fans in Seattle\u2019s streets \u2014 as a healthy development for the state\u2019s LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the best things about the World Cup, some of the exposure that different communities are having to one another,\u201d said Jinkins. \u201cIt\u2019s not just Iranian and Egyptian fans learning about Pride, it\u2019s us learning about Iranian and Egyptian culture and thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither, however, planned to attend the match itself despite receiving invitations to do so. Jinkins said she would likely visit a \u201cfan zone\u201d watch party being hosted by the Puyallup Tribe of Indians at its administrative headquarters in her Tacoma district. Pedersen, who concedes he is \u201cnot a sports fan,\u201d was scheduled to participate in a Trans Pride event in Capitol Hill, the historic heart of gay Seattle where he is deep in an aggressive reelection campaign against a challenger to his left.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad when I take up the ticket for something where there is a lot of demand,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cPeople who really enjoy it should be having this experience, and probably not me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 On Thursday, the Washington state House speaker and its Senate president \u2014 likely the country\u2019s first-ever pairing of openly gay state capital legislative leaders \u2014 met to strategize with progressive campaigners against a pair of conservative-backed ballot initiatives that would impose new rules on transgender children in schools and sports. To defeat the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}