Colorado lawmakers strip trans rights bill’s most controversial provisions before overnight vote

Legislation that would enact new antidiscrimination protections for transgender Coloradans passed a Senate committee early Thursday morning after its backers altered the most controversial provisions to assuage advocacy groups’ concerns.

House Bill 1312 is now two votes and some procedural smoothing away from Gov. Jared Polis’ desk. The proposal would expand the state’s antidiscrimination law to include intentionally, repeatedly “deadnaming” or misgendering a transgender person.

The measure passed the House a month ago but has since hit whitecaps: Two weeks ago, some prominent LGBT+ groups began to hedge their previous support over fears of legal backlash.

Those concerns prompted significant changes to the bill early Thursday, after hours of testimony in a marathon hearing that had begun Wednesday afternoon. HB-1312 passed Senate Judiciary on a party-line 5-2 vote just before 1 a.m.

Should it pass into law, the bill would still protect transgender people from being misgendered or deadnamed, or referred to by the name they used before they transitioned, in discrimination laws for places like work and school. It would also enact shield-law protections for Coloradans against other states’ anti-transgender policies, and it would make changes to policies for name alterations on marriage certificates and gender markers on driver’s licenses.

But the bill’s Democratic sponsors — Sens. Chris Kolker and Faith Winter — fully removed the bill’s most controversial provision: a new requirement for family-court judges to consider one parent’s misgendering or deadnaming of their child in custody proceedings. They also stripped language related to publishing materials that deadname or misgender someone.

“We want to make sure that we’re all seen as equals,” Kolker said. “And that’s what this bill is doing.”

As the hearing wound down, Democratic Sen. Dylan Roberts said some concerns persisted. Roberts pressed one of the bill’s proponents about the measure’s shield law provision, which would prohibit Colorado authorities from removing a child receiving gender-affirming care from a parent’s home because of another state’s laws. Roberts argued the provision may violate interstate agreements and would put the state at “immense legal risk.”

He said he understood that Polis was worried, too, and Roberts wanted to know why proponents wouldn’t just remove that section.

Erika Unger, who works for a law firm supporting the bill, replied that Polis’ office has “certainly expressed concerns” recently but that the governor hasn’t said he would veto HB-1312. Roberts, who later voted to pass the bill, said it would be “disappointing to the community” if the bill were not to pass, given the “significant concern” from Polis.

That prompted a transgender woman to interject.

“As one of those community members that was also stakeholdered on this bill, and as someone who grew up in rural Alabama — someone who was persecuted by my state’s laws — I absolutely feel this section matters, very much to me,” Sky Childress told Roberts. “I do not want this section struck from the bill whatsoever.”

In a statement, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said the governor’s office “shared a number of legal and policy concerns about the bill with the sponsors and understands that LGBTQ+ community advocates have a variety of concerns as well.”

Polis “believes further conversations are needed between sponsors, advocates, and caring parents to ensure our state’s needs are met, and (that the bill) better takes into account the complexity of family law and family dynamics,” Wieman wrote.

As the hearing began Wednesday, hundreds of people had signed up — and lined up — to testify, filling two overflow rooms and prompting the committee’s chair to cap testimony at four hours each for supporters and for opponents.