Colorado parents unload on liberal lawmakers, prompting changes to controversial gender bill
Parents packed a Wednesday night Colorado Senate hearing to voice outrage over a gender identity bill that critics say could attack parental rights.
HB25-1312, which imposes state-mandated gender policies on schools, initially would have considered a parent's refusal to affirm their child's gender identity as "coercive control" in child custody cases.
"Pass this bill and history will not remember you as heroes, it will remember you as cowards who sold out the rights of the people for the approval of extremists," one concerned dad declared.
Others branded the bill an "attack on parental rights," with one saying the measure could be more accurately called "how to break up families and use the law to steal children from their parents."
Another more succinctly said, "disagreement is not abuse."
After much contention, sponsoring lawmakers, Democratic Sens. Chris Kolker and Faith Winter, stripped the bill of its most controversial provisions before an overnight vote — and while Republicans say it's a big win for them and for parents, their fight against the effort isn't over yet.
State Rep. Rose Pugliese, a Republican representing the Centennial State's 14th district, told "The Faulkner Focus" on Thursday that she believes the bill is still an attack on parental rights.
"All the grassroots parents that came and waited in line for hours in order to testify really helped make this bill less egregious in some ways and then more egregious in other ways," she said.
"While they took out that child custody piece, which was a real problem, especially for domestic violence survivors that I get to work with… they included language that said, ‘you no longer are required to get a court order in order to change your name and get a government-issued ID, even if you are in this country unlawfully,’ so that jeopardizes public safety in a different way.
COLORADO'S ‘TOTALITARIAN’ TRANSGENDERISM BILL SPARKS CONCERNS FROM PARENTS
She continued, "So we're still attacking parental rights, but we are now adding an additional public safety element to it."
She went on to slam the state's Democratic leadership for pushing measures to make Coloradans less safe and urged parents to continue their pressure campaign by talking to their state senators.
"We know that amendments could be offered on the floor. We don't know what this bill will look like when it comes back to the House, so we cannot let the pressure off. We need to have these conversations and continue to get our voices heard, and I think parents are doing that across Colorado and across this nation."
According to The Denver Post, if the bill becomes law, it will "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."
The hypothetical law could also protect Colorado from other states' "anti-transgender policies" and make changes to existing policies for name alterations and gender markers on driver's licenses.