How Trump’s anti-trans policies are impacting Colorado kids
Plus: updates on congressional redistricting and Tina Peters
Colorado generally has some of the best protections for LGBTQ people of any state in the country. But kids in Colorado are still being impacted by the Trump administration’s extensive efforts to curtail trans peoples’ rights.
Children’s Hospital Colorado stopped providing gender-affirming care to kids last year – like dozens of other hospitals across the country – after the Trump administration threatened to cut off federal funding.
Families of trans kids sued, and a few weeks ago, the state Supreme Court ruled that the hospital’s decision probably violated Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws.
At the time, it seemed like a big win for supporters of trans rights, and that’s still true. But the fight isn’t over.
Local news outlets reported recently that kids still aren’t getting gender-affirming care at the hospital because doctors who work there are refusing to provide it, saying they’re afraid the Trump administration could come after them.
Even though major US medical associations support gender-affirming care for kids, the doctors’ fears aren’t baseless. The Trump administration is exploring legal action including possible criminal charges against doctors and hospitals in other states.
The families of the trans kids are looking to hold the hospital in contempt of court, arguing it’s trying to get around the order to restart care by blaming the doctors. There’s a hearing on that issue set for next month.
Another big fight over trans kids’ rights is happening in JeffCo Schools – the second biggest district in Colorado after Denver.
The federal Department of Education launched an investigation that found earlier this year that the district’s policies aimed at accommodating trans kids violate gender equality provisions in a federal law called Title IX.
The feds claimed that dozens of male students are taking roster spots on girls’ sports teams. But the district said that isn’t true, and that the males aren’t athletes but rather mascots and managers and coaches.
So what’s next? It’s kind of hard to say.
JeffCo has asked the state for help fighting the feds, since they threatened to cut the school district’s funding. But it’s not clear how far the feds are willing to go in that case.
Trump’s Education Department also went after Denver Public Schools and demanded the district get rid of an all-gender bathroom. But the district refused and so far nothing has happened.
At the same time, parents of JeffCo students backed by a conservative, anti-trans legal advocacy group are challenging the district’s policies in federal court.
The Blanket attended the oral arguments in that case, and it did not go well for JeffCo. The court should issue a ruling in the next few weeks or months.
NEED TO KNOW
🗺️ The Colorado Supreme Court this week struck down proposals that would have asked voters to change Colorado’s congressional election maps.
The state’s current maps of U.S. House of Representatives districts were drawn by an independent commission approved by voters in 2018, which created four safely Democratic seats and four safely Republican ones.
But both parties wanted to ask voters this fall to sidestep the independent commission and change the maps through ballot initiatives. Democrats proposed plans to redraw the maps so they would have a chance to win seven of those eight seats, and the Republican counterproposal would have given that party a chance to win five of the eight.
But the state Supreme Court said those proposals violate a rule that limits ballot initiatives to a single subject. And since the proposals would have changed both the process for how the districts are drawn, as well as the actual boundaries of those districts, they didn’t meet that requirement.
Colorado has been trending more and more towards the Democratic Party over the past two decades. And the results of this year’s primary elections showed there’s an appetite for even more progressive representation.
But Colorado’s delegation in the U.S. House is probably going to stay split between Democrats and Republicans, possibly until after the next census in 2030.
⚖️ Colorado Gov. Jared Polis fired two members of the state clemency board who had recommended against his decision to give leniency to election denier Tina Peters.
The fired lawyers had publicly spoken out against Polis’ decision, saying the board had recommended — twice, unanimously — against giving Peters clemency, because they thought she wasn’t actually sorry about her crimes and was engaging in “performative accountability.”
Multiple news outlets reported this week that Polis said the public criticism of his decision violated a confidentiality policy that is supposed to keep clemency board proceedings secret.
But the lawyers stood by their decision to speak out, saying the public had a right to know how such a controversial decision got made.
Tina Peters was the top elections official in Mesa County, the biggest county in Western Colorado. She broke the law while trying to investigate false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
She was convicted of multiple felonies in 2024 and sentenced to several years in jail. But in May of this year, Polis gave her clemency that let her get out early on June 1.
After Peters got out, she immediately went back to talking about baseless claims of election fraud, and she visited the White House this week where Trump repeated his own disproven claims.
COMING UP
🇺🇸 Enjoy the holiday weekend! 🦅 We’ll be back next week with some original accountability reporting in addition to highlighting the work of another long-time local investigative journalist. Stay tuned.