Wanted to put together a quick policy post for anyone tracking the Colorado ballot measures (109 and 110) ahead of November. Both are backed by Protect Kids Colorado and are described as urgent responses to a problem. The data tells a different story.
What the actual scale looks like in Colorado:
There is no clear data on the number of transgender student athletes in Colorado (Chalkbeat reporting, May 2025)
Children's Hospital Colorado and Denver Health — the state's two major pediatric providers — explicitly do NOT perform gender-affirming surgeries on minors. Children's Colorado has stated they've never done so.
The federal funding pressure has already caused both hospitals to pause hormone therapies for youth, separate from these ballot measures
Compare to other state implementations:
Mississippi: 2023 statewide survey found ZERO trans students participating in sports
Washington state: fewer than 10 of approximately 250,000 student athletes
Florida: 2 trans girls have played girls sports over the last decade
So we're legislating around a problem that the data shows doesn't really exist at scale in any of these states. That should matter for anyone who thinks policy should be evidence-based.
The Colorado Newsline piece on the measures has the details on the actual ballot text. Worth reading if you vote in Colorado
Posted by Right_Razzmatazz8420
2 Comments
I’m getting increasingly frustrated by the “not a big deal because it’s rare” argument.
Does this suggest that we should seriously consider the legislation only once a certain threshold is crossed? It completely avoids arguing the merits.
Consider… one single trans kid would be on a team with say 15 other kids and is competing against say 120 other kids per season. Fewer than ten trans kids spread across a state would already be affecting over a thousand kids.
Honestly my advice to all the anti trans grifters who freak about this is to grow the fuck up. Trans girls are girls and deserve to be able to have a normal teenage life. No one was is transitioning to be better at sports. This is a made up bigoted problem that has absolutely no actual impact. Let trans student be normal students