Another day, another attack on the First Amendment.
Colorado’s Democrat Governor Jared Polis signed a new bill that makes it a crime to ‘deadname’ or ‘misgender’ transgender people in certain places.
“The bill requires to county clerks and recorders to issue name changes on marriage certificates when requested but leave no indication or mark that the certificate has been modified,” The Denver Post reported.
The Denver Post reported:
Colorado law now explicitly protects transgender people from being “deadnamed” or misgendered in certain places under legislation signed into law Friday by Gov. Jared Polis.
Passed as House Bill 1312, the new law is formally named for Kelly Loving, a transgender woman who died in the 2022 mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs. The law expands the state’s antidiscrimination laws, which apply to settings like workplaces and schools, to include provisions related to using a person’s chosen name and referring to them how they wish.
It also makes it easier for people to change their gender identity on birth certificates and driver’s licenses, and to change their names on marriage licenses.
“The Kelly Loving Act is a beacon of hope to trans people across the country,” Z Williams, whose law firm Bread and Roses supported HB-1312, said Friday. “Our organizing works. Hope is still alive. To be trans is to know how to struggle. We will not stop this work until every trans person is safe and free.”
Bill Summary:
Section 1 of the bill creates the “Kelly Loving Act”. Section 2 provides that, when making child custody decisions and determining the best interests of a child for purposes of parenting time, a court shall consider deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s gender-affirming health-care services as types of coercive control. A court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interests of the child. Section 3 prohibits a Colorado court from applying or giving any force or effect to another state’s law that authorizes a state agency to remove a child from the child’s parent or guardian because the parent or guardian allowed the child to receive gender-affirming health-care services. Section 4 provides that, if a local education provider, an educator, or a contractor chooses to enact or enforce a policy related to chosen names, that policy must be to make the policy inclusive of all reasons that a student might adopt a chosen name that differs from the student’s legal name. Sections 5 and 6 provide that a dress code adopted or implemented by a local education provider must allow each student to choose from any of the options provided in the dress code Sections 7 and 8 define deadnaming and misgendering as discriminatory acts in the “Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act”, and prohibit these discriminatory acts in places of public accommodation, although the bill does not prevent a public entity from using an individual’s legal name when required to do so by law to ensure that the identity of the individual can be verified or that other information pertaining to the individual that is needed for legal or other legitimate public purposes can be obtained.
