Thanks to the leadership of One Colorado and support from their coalition partners, there will be zero anti-trans legislation on the ballot in November.
After Colorado’s Supreme Court denied several anti-trans ballot issues, the remaining few did not gain enough signatures to be on the ballot. One of these ballot issues denied by the Supreme Court was Initiative 175, which would have banned medically necessary gender-affirming care for minors and restricted doctors from talking to their patients about all of their healthcare needs. This was succesfully advocated against by the Freedom for All Coloradans Coalition. This coalition, led by One Colorado, Rocky Mountain Equality, and the Rose Community Foundation, has been the leading advocacy group in terms of protecting trans rights on our upcoming ballots.
The remaining two anti-trans ballot issues were issues #142 and #160, also known as Parental Notification of Gender Noncongruence and Keep Boys Out of Girls Sports, and were proposed by Protect Kids Colorado. These initiatives needed to gain 124,000 signatures by August 5 to be considered on the ballot but did not receive the necessary signatures, instead only receiving over half of 124,000 signatures. These initiatives would have forced schools to out trans children to their parents and ban trans students from participating in sports that align with their gender identity.
One Colorado released their 2024 Legislative Report on Equality recently, which expressed that trans rights and overall LGBTQ+ rights are currently under attack, both in Colorado and throughout the nation. Many anti-trans ballot initiatives were proposed this year, with the majority of these initiatives attacking trans youth by banning gender-affirming care for minors, excluding trans children from participating in school sports, and censoring LGBTQ+ topics in school settings.
This is a major win for Colorado, but our rights are constantly being threatened at both the national level and individual state levels. Voting in the 2024 election is incredibly important, and could ensure our rights are protected for at least another four years.
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