Colorado allows anti-LGBTQ+ group to pursue law outing trans students to parents

Colorado’s Supreme Court has said that an anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group may start collecting signatures to approve Ballot Measure 142, a proposed law that would require schools to out transgender students to their potentially unsupportive parents. The group now has until August to collect about 125,000 signatures needed to get the measure on the November general election ballot.

The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) — a group who believe that a “radical agenda” of “indoctrination” in schools has “exploited” children by teaching them “x-rated sex acts” and giving them access to gender-affirming care — wants voters to support a law that would public school representatives to notify a student’s parents if their child experiences gender incongruence (that is, identification with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth.

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“We believe this measure is so supportive of our kiddos that do identify as LGBT,” Lori Gimelshteyn, CPAN’s executive director told KUSA.

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Gimelshteyn helped write the ballot initiative. It reads: “Any public school representative who obtains information that a child enrolled in their public school is experiencing gender incongruence shall notify the child’s parents within 48 hours of receiving such information.”

“Do people not have anything to do than to interfere in the lives of someone that’s different from them?” said Mardi Moore, executive director of Out Boulder County, the local LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “This is specifically an anti-LGBTQ initiative. The folks behind it have been clear.”

The initiative is similar to policies passed by other conservative school boards nationwide. School districts in California, New Jersey, and Florida have similar policies requiring educators to out their LGBTQ+ students. Indiana signed a similar student-outing policy into law last May. 

Similar policies require school officials to notify parents and guardians if their child requests to use a name, gendered pronouns, or gendered school facilities (such as bathrooms or locker rooms) that don’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. The policy requires officials to communicate the child’s gender identity to their parents, even if the child doesn’t consent.

Supporters of these policies say that such policies are needed to prevent schools from “secretly” “encouraging” students to change genders without their parents’ knowledge, and that parents have a right to know if their child is questioning their gender.

Opponents say these policies violate trans students’ privacy by outing them to their potentially unsupportive parents and also burden teachers with additional stressful responsibilities that diminish student-teacher trust. Opponents also say such policies may violate state constitutional protections promising equal rights, privacy, and freedom from gender-based discrimination. Medical experts also say that transgender and non-binary youth don’t transition just because their peers and adult figures pressure them to do so.

A 2022 Trevor Project survey revealed that only 32% of trans and nonbinary youths felt that their home was a supportive and gender-affirming environment.