SAN DIEGO — California's current ban on state-funded travel to states with anti-LGBTQ+ policies could soon be coming to an end.
When this ban on state-funded travel was originally put in place back in 2016, there were only four states on the list.
Today though, there are 23, at a time when more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in statehouses across the country, according to the Human Rights Campaign: a record number.
"We're going to eliminate the ban, but it's a pivot to a more positive way to do what we hoped to do all along," said State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, who is openly gay and the first woman to lead both the Assembly and the Senate in California.
She voted for the original travel boycott.
"I think we made a point: but at this point, it is really not working as intended," she told CBS 8.
For instance, this ban means that academics at UC and Cal State universities, including SDSU, can't use state funds for research in nearly half the states in the nation; and college sports teams have to find alternate funding sources for much of their out-of-state travel.
Atkins said this policy has also ended up isolating LGBTQ+ people in those banned states, effectively barring California leaders from reaching out to them.
"The intent is to interact... to take the values of support and inclusion on the road into other places," she added. "And not being able to be there means that you're more polarized... more polarized, and we don't need more of that in this country."
To that end, Atkins is proposing Senate Bill 447: new legislation that would not only end the current travel ban but also launch an outreach campaign to those banned states, promoting California's values of diversity and inclusivity.
This non-partisan bill is nicknamed the "BRIDGE" project: "Building and Reinforcing Inclusive, Diverse, Gender-supportive Equality."
"California is a beacon and a model," Atkins said. "It was for me at a young age."
Atkins pointed to her own experience as a gay teen growing up in rural Virginia.
"I didn't have role models," she added. "There was no one in my community that I could look to, and when you preclude people from being able to go into those areas, you take an option away from kids like I was back then."
While state funds could potentially be used for the BRIDGE project, Atkins said this campaign would primarily be donation-driven: a cause she believes most Californians would support.
"Anything we can do to actually build bridges, to create kindness, to create acceptance," she said, "I think regular everyday people are going to like that: I think that's what we all want."
SB 447 has already passed the state Senate and will have its first Assembly committee hearing next week.
If ultimately passed and signed into law, it would go into effect at the start of next year. Atkins said she would like to see this outreach campaign begin as early as next spring.
WATCH RELATED: New push to end California travel ban to states with anti-LGBTQ laws