Messages invoking transgender children are being sent ahead of Tuesday’s vote that could reverse abortion protections and constitutionally restrict trans health care.

In 2025, Republican lawmakers introduced the current Amendment 3 proposal to reestablish a constitutional abortion ban and overturn the 2024 referendum. To increase their chances of success, they adopted a strategy right out of the Trump 2.0 “Kamala is for they/them” playbook: including language in the ballot measure that would change the Missouri constitution to “prohibit gender transition procedures for minors,” banning doctors from providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat kids with gender dysphoria.

Paul Wissner says he “doesn’t have a dog in that fight” over transgender youth healthcare, but he did like the canvasser who talked to him about it at his home in Richmond Heights, Mo., one fall afternoon. He remembers her name too: Brittany.

“The girl who was here the other day, she was transgender,” Wissner told Assigned Media as our reporters observed a subsequent afternoon of canvassing in Wissner’s neighborhood. “I liked her. She was nice.”

Brittany is one of dozens of canvassers who have fanned out across five Missouri cities on behalf of PROMO, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ organization. They hope to persuade people to vote no on Amendment 3 in November, but also to do something a lot more radical than that: They hope to persuade voters that trans Missourians are their neighbors, that trans people are people just like them.

Now Republican leaders in the state are trying to repeal those rights again, using the same issue. They placed a new amendment on the November ballot, also called Amendment 3, that would restore Missouri’s abortion ban while allowing limited exceptions but also constitutionally prohibit gender transition care for minors — though the state has banned surgeries and new prescriptions of puberty blockers and hormones by law since August 2023.

For the Missouri GOP, Election Day can often seem like Groundhog Day. The party holds a supermajority in the legislature and controls every statewide office, yet voters have repeatedly used the initiative petition process to enact policies Republican leaders oppose. By gathering enough signatures, citizens have placed proposals directly on the ballot, then persuaded voters to expand Medicaid, legalize marijuana, raise the minimum wage and restore abortion rights.

Looking for some family-friendly fall fun this weekend? Head to Zona Rosa!

Democrats hope to flip a Springfield Senate seat for the first time in more than 80 years, replacing Republican Lincoln Hough.

State residents express anger at Republicans who allowed chaotic voting maps saga to unfold ahead of the midterms

Amendment 3 would reinstate Missouri's abortion ban with limited exceptions while also constitutionally prohibiting gender-transition treatments for minors. And Reed, who describes herself as a lifelong liberal and supports legal abortion with some restrictions, told the room which part of the measure she thought could help carry it.

"If we talk to people about the trans part of this amendment," she said, "we can get it to pass."