OPINION: The Truth About Colorado’s New Transgender Rights Law

This op-ed by Quentin Young appeared on Colorado Newsline on May 23, 2025.

State Rep. Brandi Bradley speaks on the Colorado House floor during the last day of the 2025 legislative session, May 7, at the Colorado Capitol. Bradley is a vocal opponent of House Bill 25-1312’s transgender protections. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)

Of all the bills introduced this year at the Colorado Capitol, one came to define the legislative session for much of the right in Colorado. Even now that the session is over and the bill has become law, it is taking on new life as opponents exercise their outrage in schoolyard-bully social media posts, depraved sermons and a legal challenge in federal court.

The legislation, House Bill 25-1312, enacted several new protections for transgender people. Though the law was a reasonable response to escalating attacks against a besieged segment of the population, especially since the start of the Trump administration and its extreme anti-trans bias, the backlash it prompted is disproportionate, sinister and full of misinformation.

The first thing to understand about the trans rights law is that, while it contains several technical passages and underwent extensive debate and revision, the source of opposition to it has very little to do with the bill’s actual provisions. It’s about hate. It’s about bigotry against transgender people.

That’s all.

Opponents have become adept at advancing talking points that might sound superficially plausible — rhetoric about threats to women in sports, supposed adverse medical outcomes to minors who transition, parental rights infringements — but these arguments have the inconvenient quality of withering under evidence and counterpoints, and, worse, they’re a cover for the ultimate justification bigots use for discrimination against trans people: Christian scripture.

Many of the most virulent activists against the law have ties to or are pastors at politically right-wing churches. They justify every other point of opposition by their interpretation of the Bible, which in their reading says trans people are dangerous and beset by evil. Opposition to the law is simply a repugnant form of Christian sanctimony that serves little more than hate of a very recognizably human kind.

Many of the most contested provisions of the bill were amended out of the final version, yet some anti-trans activists continue to allude to those passages as part of their denunciations. View with extreme skepticism any criticism that discusses whether anti-trans parents could be disadvantaged in child custody cases or a shield provision against anti-trans laws in other states. Language around those issues were in the bill at one time, but were later stripped.

The provision of the governor-signed HB-1312 that has drawn the most negative attention boosts anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

Republican state Rep. Brandi Bradley in a social media post and video after passage of the bill told her audience that anti-trans parents could lose custody of their trans children if they discriminate against them, that private schools, churches and other places of public accommodation could be sued for anti-trans discrimination, and that there’s no telling when someone deadnames or misgenders a trans person at what threshold discrimination liability kicks in.

This is all misleading. CADA has always prohibited discrimination and harassment against certain protected classes, and the protected classes have always included “gender identity” and “gender expression.” All HB-1312 does is clarify that gender expression could involve a “chosen name” and pronouns.

“Their claim that it’s now illegal is false,” state Rep. Lorena García, an Adams County Democrat who sponsored the bill, told Newsline last week. “It’s always been illegal.”

And it’s fearmongering to suggest that someone is liable to a discrimination allegation the moment they misgender or deadname someone. CADA covers particular settings, including employment, housing, and places of public accommodation. Churches and other places used for religious purposes are excluded. Incidental or accidental acts do not qualify as discrimination.

“Within CADA already, it’s already like discrimination has to be intentional,” García said. “So the fact that this is just being wrapped into gender identity, we’re not changing the threshold of when something is actually considered discrimination.”

But discrimination, it turns out, is exactly what some of the most outspoken 1312 critics intend. Many are Christian leaders and pastors, including Jeff Hunt, conservative radio host and former director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University; Chris Goble of Ridgeline Community Church in Castle Rock; J. Chase Davis of The Well Church in Boulder; and Aaron Carlson of New City Church in Highlands Ranch. Each one of these bullies has singled out state Rep. Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat who is the first transgender woman to serve in the Colorado Legislature, to intentionally deadname and misgender her.

The only plaintiff named as an individual in the lawsuit against HB-1312 is Travis Morrell, a Grand Junction dermatologist who online broadcasts faith-based motivations. A social media account called Fight1312 has become a primary source of anti-trans sentiment. Its posts make it clear that behind every variety of opposition to transgender rights is essentially one complaint, that God, as conceived by 1312’s opponents, commands them to hate transgender people.

“Our good God does not make mistakes,” Goble said in a video of a recent sermon, facing the camera and addressing Titone directly. He aggressively misgendered her and called on her to “repent.”

Titone herself detects an additional motivation among anti-trans activists, noting there have been other episodes throughout history when transgender people faced persecution.

“The big difference now, because of all the social media and everything else, they’re making money off of it,” she said. “So it’s not just finding an enemy and a scapegoat you can pick on, to gang up on and get people to come along with you for the kicking fest, but they’re actually making money off of it.”

But hate does real harm.

“Kids are scared,” Titone said. “I’ve heard from kids. They’re like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m afraid my grandfather’s not going to like who I am and they’re going to not want to talk to me anymore.'”

Her own response to bigots is public poise, legislative fortitude and personal resilience.

“If they see me get frustrated and angry, they’ll just use it against me. I can’t let them,” she said. “I can’t show any kinks in the armor, so to speak, because otherwise they’ll try to slay me, and I can’t let that happen.”