Prominent Colorado LGBTQ+ groups hedge on support for transgender rights bill

In early April, the political director of a leading LGBTQ+ advocacy group urged state lawmakers to support legislation that would extend new legal protections to transgender Coloradans.

House Bill 1312, One Colorado’s Jax Gonzalez testified, was a show of solidarity for transgender people amid a “coordinated and escalating set of attacks” nationwide. The bill, they said, represented “one piece of an ongoing conversation about how we respond.”

“Not just with policy,” Gonzalez said, “but with principle.”

A little more than two weeks later, that support took a turn. Gonzalez told the bill’s supporters last week that One Colorado was hedging its support and would seek changes to the proposal, an advocate said. The group told The Denver Post that it had legal concerns and that it wanted to ensure the bill didn’t jeopardize “existing protections.”

Prominent LGBTQ+ groups have also privately raised concerns after the bill passed the House earlier this month. Some wondered whether current law was sufficient, and they worried about a legal backlash if the bill passed, its supporters said.

While the measure cleared the House on April 6 with full Democratic backing, it then languished in the Senate for more than two weeks. It was introduced Tuesday after The Post asked about its status; Senate President James Coleman had said that morning that sponsors were still working with stakeholders on the bill.

The upheaval threw a late and unexpected roadblock in front of a proposal that seeks to prevent “deadnaming” of transgender people and ensure family courts consider parents’ support of — or opposition to — their child’s gender identity in custody proceedings.

In a scathing email obtained by The Post, an advocate supporting the bill told Gonzalez that One Colorado’s shift was “an act of betrayal.”

The bill’s supporters and its Democratic backers had worked with the group on previous changes, and they argued that One Colorado was well aware of the bill’s contents when it signed on in support. The group’s representatives even attended events supporting the proposal.

Now, lawmakers say, they don’t know what changes One Colorado wants or why it’s abruptly changed its position on a bill that’s undergone only minor changes since Gonzalez’s public show of support.

“Nothing in the bill has changed,” Sen. Faith Winter, a Westminster Democrat, said Tuesday. “We have taken feedback from those organizations since the beginning.”

In an email Tuesday, One Colorado’s executive director, Nadine Bridges, said the group “moved to an amend position after hearing concerns from community members, families, partners, and legal experts. To address those concerns and ensure the bill protects our community, we are working on amendments.”

In separate emails, One Colorado spokesperson Cal Solverson said the group was “working with local families, transgender community leaders, and legal experts to ensure the language of this bill reflects current best practices” and that “expert LGBTQIA+ lawyers inside and outside Colorado have identified areas where clarification and improvement are needed to ensure we don’t jeopardize existing protections.”

“One Colorado continues to support the intent of this bill,” Solverson wrote, adding that the group’s suggested amendments should be drafted by the end of the week.

Winter and Democratic Rep. Lorena Garcia, another bill sponsor, said they believed the measure had sufficient support from lawmakers and were confident it would eventually pass.

The bill has been staunchly opposed by Republicans. The measure would require family courts to consider a parent’s intentional misgendering or deadnaming of a transgender child in custody proceedings. The latter means to refer to a person by the name they used before they transitioned.

House Republicans have argued those provisions would infringe on parental rights, and some lawmakers attended a protest against the bill outside the Capitol last week.

The measure would also prohibit Colorado courts from using other states’ anti-transgender laws to facilitate transferring custody of a child from one parent to another because the child had received gender-affirming care. It would amend the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to specify that intentionally misgendering transgender people or using their deadname would be discriminatory if done in a place of public accommodation.

After the bill passed the House, the Gill Foundation, a prominent financial supporter of LGBTQ+ causes including One Colorado, called lawmakers to express “concerns,” Winter said. Other national organizations also shared “late feedback” on the measure.

In a statement sent Wednesday morning, the Gill Foundation said it “does not and cannot engage in lobbying.” Brad Clark, the group’s president and CEO, reached out to Winter “as a member of the community and private citizen.”

Then, near the end of a meeting last week with advocates, lawmakers and legislative leadership, One Colorado said it was going to formally drop its support position and instead seek amendments, according to Z Williams, an advocate and supporter of the bill. Rocky Mountain Equality soon followed.

Winter said One Colorado expressed “mostly fear of lawsuits” and “legal backlash.” After the meeting ended, the group publicly announced on Instagram that it would seek “thoughtful revisions” to “ensure the success of this bill.”

Rocky Mountain Equality’s chief operating office, Bruce Parker, declined to comment Tuesday.

The nature of the groups’ desired changes was unclear. Bridges would not describe them to The Post, and the bill’s supporters said they haven’t received a written list of specific concerns or proposed amendments.