A measure that would ban transgender athletes from competing in gendered sports, from kindergarten through college, was too close to call Tuesday night.
At midnight, 52.2% of the votes tallied were in favor of Proposition 134 and 47.8% were opposed. That was with 73% of the votes counted in Colorado. The measure needs 50% of the vote to pass and changes state law, not the state constitution, which means the legislature could rewrite or even eliminate it.
Proposition 134 would affect transgender athletes playing sports from kindergarten through college at any school or sports association that receives state funding. It requires that students assigned male at birth play only on boys teams or co-ed teams and vice versa for females.
It defines girls as people with female reproductive organs and boys as those with male reproductive organs. It requires that every school adopt a policy that classifies its sports teams as either male, female or co-ed.
Girls teams could not have participants the proposition defines as male. Boys teams likewise could not have female participants — unless “no corresponding female team is offered for that sport,” the measure says.
Transgender students could play on co-ed teams.
The measure was one of three on the ballot this year from Protect Kids Colorado, a group fighting for parental rights and against the “sexualization of children.” The group’s other two measures — Proposition 135 and 133 — would ban surgeries that change sex characteristics for minors and increase the punishment for child sex trafficking to life imprisonment.
The face of all three is Erin Leea mom in Wellington who said her 12-year-old daughter was invited to a gender and sexuality awareness art club at her middle school, which Lee said led her daughter to believe, for about a year, that she was transgender.
Lee leads the group Protect Kids Colorado.
The Protect Kids Colorado issue committee supported propositions 133, 134 and 135. It raised about $300,000, including $100,000 from the nonprofit Athletes for Action, a nonprofit that says it’s focused on protecting girls and women in sports. Other major donors to the group include the Church for All Nations and Pikes Peak Citizens for Life in Colorado Springs; Jeff Coors of the Coors brewing family; and the Protect Kids Colorado nonprofit.
Several LGBTQ rights and anti-discrimination groups fought against the measure, including Families Not Politics, Hands Off Colorado, One Colorado and Bread and Roses Legal Center. They argued it would lead to genital checks of student-athletes, including if someone complains that an athlete on a girls team is stronger, faster or has masculine features.
Families Not Politics was the main group fighting propositions 134 and 135. It raised about $3.5 million during the election.
The issue committee’s major donors included Planned Parenthood; the abortion rights organization Cobalt Advocates; and the ACLU. One Colorado, an LGBTQ rights organization, also was a major donor to the committee.
Another issue committee, The People’s No, also fought 134 and 135. That group raised about $365,000, most of it from the ACLU and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights .
Finally, Vote Common Sense, a third issue committee formed to fight an array of conservative ballot measures this year, also spent against propositions 133, 134 and 135. It raised about $1.1 million this year, much of it from the Green Advocacy Project; Denver philanthropist Merle Chambers; and the Colorado Fund for Children and Public Education, which is tied to the state’s largest teachers union.
Opponents of Proposition 134 called it an attack on trans girls, and pointed out that trans people are a tiny fraction of the population, somewhere from 1% to 3%.
As of this fall, 27 states have banned trans girls from competing in girls sports.
Anita Williams, 80, who voted in person Tuesday in Denver, said Proposition 134 was “one of the things that bothered me the most on the ballot” and that she was concerned it would lead to gender checks of children.
“Testing kids for what sex, what gender they are? I think that’s invasive,” she said. “You don’t stick a needle in my kid because you want to know if they’re male or female. You’re not going to do that. No. You know, you can report it, and if you find out I lied about it, then you can take their medal away or whatever. But you’re not going to be doing that to my kid. I just think that’s an awful thing.”
Under current practice, the Colorado High School Activities Association requires that trans students disclose that they are transgender to their school so that the school can “perform a confidential evaluation to determine the gender assignment” for the athlete. The student and their parents must notify the school in writing that the student’s gender identity differs from the one they were assigned at birth.
Transgender athletes have a right to play, but the school’s evaluation determines whether they can play with the team that matches their gender identity. That evaluation could include a written statement from the student affirming their gender identity, as well as letters from parents, teachers, friends and doctors.
The ballot measure would end that evaluation process, instead requiring that transgender athletes play on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth. The state education commissioner would be in charge of enforcing the policy and taking action against schools that violate it.
The high school sports association does not track how many transgender athletes are playing
Colorado Sun staff writers Jesse Paul and Michael Booth contributed to this report.
Source: coloradosun.com
