Colorado recently passed HB 25-1312, a law that provides additional protection for transgender people in certain areas of the law. It says public schools with dress codes must allow students to choose any option. It says that public schools that have a policy regarding using kids’ nicknames must include trans kids’ chosen names too. It also makes it easier for trans people to change their gender identity on birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
An earlier version of the bill also added intentionally “deadnaming” and “misgendering” to the list of things you can’t do with malicious intent under the "Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act," which would apply to places of public accommodation, and said judges could consider anti-trans bigotry when determining child custody cases. Both of those portions were struck from the final bill.
But the parts that remain obviously apply to public spaces. If people want to be bigots in their private lives, they are, as always, allowed to be. Just as civil rights laws have never prevented people from being racist—or getting elected to power despite their open racism—this new law wouldn’t apply to churches or individuals who routinely demean trans people or claim they don’t really exist.
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