Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals

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 not create or enforce any rules based on gender and must allow each student to abide by any variation of the dress code allow each student to choose from any of the options provided in the dress code. Section 7 provides that, when an individual is required to provide their name through a form administered by a public entity, the form must include an option to provide the individual's legal name and chosen name. If the individual provides a chosen name that is different from the individual's legal name, the chosen name must be used on all subsequent forms administered by the public entity. Sections 8 7 and 9 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.

(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)