The highest court in Colorado has given the green light to an anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group to begin gathering signatures for Ballot Measure 142, a proposed law that would mandate schools to disclose transgender students' identities to their potentially unsupportive parents. The group has until August to collect around 125,000 signatures in order to place the measure on the November general election ballot.
The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) — a group that believes that a “radical agenda” of “indoctrination” in schools has “exploited” children by teaching them “x-rated sex acts” and providing them with access to gender-affirming care — aims to garner public support for a law mandating public school representatives to inform a student’s parents if their child experiences gender incongruence (identifying with a gender different from the one assigned at birth.
“We think this measure is very supportive of our children who identify as LGBT,” stated Lori Gimelshteyn, CPAN’s executive director told KUSA.
Gimelshteyn assisted in drafting the ballot initiative, which states: “Any public school representative who becomes aware that a child enrolled in their public school is experiencing gender incongruence must notify the child’s parents within 48 hours of receiving such information.”
“Do people not have anything better to do than to meddle in the lives of those who are different from them?” remarked Mardi Moore, executive director of Out Boulder County, the local LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “This is specifically an anti-LGBTQ initiative. The individuals behind it have been clear.”
The initiative is akin to policies enacted by other conservative school boards across the country. School districts in California, New Jersey, and Florida have comparable policies that mandate educators to disclose information about their LGBTQ+ students. Indiana enacted a similar policy regarding student disclosure into law last May.
Similar policies require school officials to inform 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 align with the sex they were assigned at birth. The policy necessitates officials to relay the child’s gender identity to their parents, even if the child does not consent.
Supporters of these policies assert that such measures are necessary to prevent schools from covertly influencing students to change genders without their parents’ knowledge, and that parents have a right to know if their child is questioning their gender.
Opponents argue that these policies infringe on trans students’ privacy by revealing them to their potentially unsupportive parents and place additional stressful responsibilities on teachers, which erodes trust between students and teachers. Opponents also contend that such policies may violate state constitutional protections for equal rights, privacy, and freedom from gender-based discrimination. Medical experts also assert that transgender and non-binary youth do not transition simply due to peer or adult pressure.
A 2022 Trevor Project survey disclosed that only 32% of trans and nonbinary youths felt that their home was a supportive and gender-affirming environment.
