Two Transgender Rights Bills Advance in Colorado House

The Colorado House approved two transgender bills back in February, but the bills still need a final vote before going through to the Senate.

One measure, House Bill 1039, would require K-12 schools to create written policies for using a student’s chosen name and pronouns. The second, House Bill 1071, aims to ease the process for transgender people with felony records that want to change their names to align with their gender.

Despite concerns from Democrats that the debate may result in arguments over freedom of speech with Republicans, the event, outside of a few flare-up disagreements, resulted in the approval of both bills.

CPR reported that there were tense moments where a couple of Republican lawmakers conflated transgender people with sexual predators, but Democrats forcibly pushed back against that rhetoric.

During the debate, Republican Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs made claims that the felon name change bill would fail to hold people accountable for their “sexual predator background.”

The statement surely leans on harmful rhetoric that conflates transgender people with sexual predators. And to conflate the two is more than incorrect, it is a dangerous use of language that continues to have real life implications. LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender folks, often meet such real life implications, and violence is no stranger to these situations.

Additionally, with the wide-spread discrimination being seen all over the country, protecting LGBTQ+ youth is no longer just a goal, but a priority. New stories are popping up nearly every day, and it is becoming common place to see LGBTQ+ youth, especially trans-youth, making headlines.

And with the recent confusing and heart wrenching passing of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student who attended school in Oklahoma, this is not a hypothetical issues; it is an immediate threat. Protecting our youth should not be a question. House Bill 1039 aims to offer inclusion and safety for transgender kiddos just trying to find a place to be themselves.

Democratic Rep. Brianna Titone of Arvada, the state’s only transgender lawmaker, says, “We’re repeating a lot of the same things over and over again to demonize a group of people, to put fear about a group of people who are just trying to exist, just trying to be who they are and do whatever they want to do in life just like everybody else.”