by Brandon Poulter
A bill to require public and charter schools in the state to socially “transition” children who request using a different name than their birth name is making its way through the Colorado legislature.
The bill, introduced in January, would require public schools and charter schools to use a child’s “preferred name” and label the refusal of a school to do so “discrimination.” It would also create a task force within the Colorado Department of Education to “provide recommendations” to schools on how to implement “non legal name changes” for children.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in several pivotal decisions that parents have a fundamental right to raise their children and make crucial education and health related decisions for their families,” Jonathan Butcher, education fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, told the DCNF. “This policy is going in the opposite direction of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.”
The bill was authored by Democratic Colorado state Rep. Stephanie Vigil (pictured above, left) and Democratic state Sens. Faith Winter (pictured above, middle) and Janice Marchman (pictured above, right). The legislation would be the first of its kind mandating “social transitions” at schools and could very well pass due to Democrats’ supermajorities in both chambers of the Colorado legislature, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
“Our bill clarifies that all Colorado students have the right to have their ‘chosen name’ used as a protection of their first amendment [sic] rights,” Marchman told the Free Beacon.
Many schools around the country already require teaching staff to respect a child’s “gender transition” and have policies to hide the transitions from parents. Over 1,000 districts, including over 18,000 schools, have policies suggesting teachers use students’ preferred names and “gender identities” and to hide them from parents, according to Parents Defending Education, a parental rights activist group.
“The lack of parent involvement and notification reinforces the current practice of school districts to hide gender transitions from parents,” Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, told the Free Beacon. “This bill silences and impedes the free speech and religious beliefs of school employees that cannot in good conscience abide by this bill.”
Some school districts have implemented policies similar to the bill and lawsuits on both sides of the issue are making their way through the court system in various states.
Two teachers in California sued their school district in April 2023, arguing that a policy requiring them to hide transitions from parents was unconstitutional. Bush-appointed District Judge Roger Benitez ordered in September 2023 that the district could not enforce the policy until the lawsuit made its way through the court system and expressed concern about the constitutionality of the policy.
New Jersey Superior Court Judge David Bauman granted a preliminary injunction in August against three school districts’ policies that alert parents about “gender transitions” at schools. The lawsuit was brought by Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who argued that the policies would “harm” transgender students and were discriminatory.
Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta has made a similar argument, calling the policies “forced outing” and saying that the policies violated LGBTQ children’s “privacy rights.” Bonta sued Chino Valley Unified School District in August 2023, arguing their policy to inform parents about their children’s “gender identity” is unconstitutional.
The many districts and legislators that push acceptance of transgender ideology “have no clue” that they’re pushing a “social contagion,” Alvin Lui, founder of Courage Is A Habit, a parental rights group, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They’re all out of touch, and they believe the doctors who are completely co-opted.”
Marchman, Vigil and Winter did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Brandon Poulter is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Janice Marchiman” by Colorado Senate Democrats.
