Propositions 134 and 135 would make Colorado the “Hate State” again
Propositions 134 and 135 couch themselves as protecting children. What they really do is target a vulnerable population for state-mandated discrimination and abuse. Colorado adopted a similar measure once before, and it led to a moniker that took years to shed.
I remember the 1992 election. As a teenager living in JeffCo and just becoming politically active, I had friends who were just realizing they were gay. We knew that people were voting on something that might affect their rights.
While middle school hallways are no stranger to discriminatory barbs, we could not believe that voting adults would pass a rule allowing discrimination based on whom they liked.
We were wrong.
My first vivid political memory is watching from my couch as reporters announced Amendment 2 passing. More than 800,000 people, or 53.41% of those casting ballots, voted to allow discrimination (Amendment 2 sought to amend the Colorado state constitution by making it illegal to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation).
Of course, it sent a shockwave through the country. It did not take long until most of America recognized Colorado as the “Hate State.
The Colorado Supreme Court would strike down the amendment before it became law and the U.S. Supreme Court would follow suit. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion declared “the amendment seems so inexplicable by anything but an animus toward the class it affects.”
Nevertheless, it took years for Colorado to overcome the tarnish left by that vote. When I helped to pass civil unions nearly 20 years later, testimony still referenced the lasting damage Amendment 2 had done to both the reputation of the state and the people it targeted.
Now Colorado faces a new challenge. While most of the LGBTQ community has found broad acceptance in the state, the transgender community has been singled out. In my mind it is like a herd of elk too strong for the wolves to attack, but the wolves continue circling trying to separate one out for a concerted attack.
That attack has persisted for the better part of a decade now. When author J.K. Rowling became a forceful opponent of transgender rights — based incongruously on her feminist beliefs — it not only horrified many of her supporters, but lent credibility to every other anti-transgender group.
The movement grew exponentially when Donald Trump used scare tactics to successfully undermine Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential campaign. Now it is spreading across states, including ours.
I noted the growing issue two years ago and explained misconceptions vulnerable to outright lies created an environment of intolerance. I sullenly noted that the transgender community would likely be under attack for years if not decades to come. Propositions 134 and 135 prove the point.
They are just one more outlet for animus and bigotry.
For example, Proposition 134 would bar transgender kids from participating in school sports under their preferred gender. This is a solution in search of a problem.
While Colorado does not have official data on the number of transgender children competing in sports, one person familiar with the issue guessed she could count the total on two hands. So, that would be less than 10 among the nearly 1 million K-12 and college students in the state.
That means the number is actually substantially less than the number of children born with atypical genitalia. The Cleveland Clinic, one of the country’s foremost medical centers, notes that at least one of multiple conditions that lead to such an outcome happen in 1 in every 1,000 to 4,500 births.
In other words, we have far more children born outside the “norm” when it comes to gender than we have transgender athletes. That could make any “test” — which opponents of the propositions note could include physical inspection of teenage kids — both overly intrusive and effectively impossible. Furthermore, it would subject entire future generations to psychological damage.
And for what? To stop a few kids from playing soccer or basketball on the “wrong” team?
The proponents of the ballot measures cannot point to a single record set or scholarship taken by a transgender athlete in the state of Colorado. Not one. Yet they persist in a Quixotic quest. They wrap themselves in a blanket of self-aggrandizing, self-proclaimed virtue and tilt toward their windmills.
Proposition 135 seems even more incongruous. It bans gender-affirming surgery on minors. As I noted above, scientifically gender is far more complex than a binary choice. But the proposition would also steal the rights of parents to help their children and families to decide what is best for themselves.
Effectively, proponents of the measure cloak themselves in the rhetoric of “family values” while stripping the rights from other families. That is both disingenuous and cruel.
Hopefully Colorado voters will see their canards.
The reality is that no one of any age becomes transgender on a whim. No one does so just to play sports. No family goes through gender-affirming care without serious thought and contemplation.
They understand the cost and the difficulties and the lifetime spent as a target for people like the proponents of Propositions 134 and 135. Being transgender is simply too hard to make it worth anything other than living life as your true self.
Thirty-five years ago Coloradans made a bad choice when hate appeared on the ballot. This year, they have a second chance. This year, Coloradans can make ours the “No Hate State” by rejecting Propositions 134 and 135.
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