In Colorado, the blue wave did not bring transgender people with it. Last week, two anti-transgender state ballot measures passed by a margin of about four points each.
It was a fate Ashley Stahl dreaded. She’s the executive director of PFLAG Roaring Fork Valley — an LGBTQ advocacy organization — and a trans woman herself.
“I think maybe Colorado has felt like a safe place,” she said. “So maybe we haven't been engaging in the tough conversations that we need to be having with our neighbors to make sure that they understand why these things are so important to us.”
Proposition 134 will require students to play on sports teams of the gender they were assigned at birth. Prop. 135 bans gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Stahl isn’t the only one who hoped the measures wouldn’t pass. Carbondale residents Tyler Chapman and Campbell Ellard showed up to the ballot drop box on Election Day with the two propositions top of mind.
“I just recently started my transition, and being able to finally vote for who I am is really nice,” Chapman said.
“I'm saddened to see that there are so many things on the ballot that are hurtful to the LGBT and to trans individuals,” Ellard said. “Hopefully we can do better in the future.”
Further downvalley, in Glenwood Springs, another voter felt there shouldn’t be legislation to restrict trans people.
“I personally think that that should be something that people personally decide upon for themselves,” Matt Graham told Aspen Public Radio outside a voting center.
That sentiment — that the government shouldn’t have a say in personal health decisions — was one a coalition opposed to the measures hoped would resonate with Coloradans.
The coalition, Families Not Politics, was headed by organizations like Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, the ACLU, Transgender Law Center and Cobalt.
“Colorado has long been a state that very much believes in personal privacy and freedom and individual bodily autonomy,” said Laura Chapin, a spokesperson for Cobalt, a regional reproductive rights group.
The anti-trans measures were put forward by a campaign called Protect Kids Colorado. On its website, it framed the propositions as defending children from “a dangerous and false ideology.” In a press release last week, Protect Kids Colorado celebrated what it called a landmark victory built by a grassroots coalition.
But it’s not the first time Colorado has passed anti-LGBTQ measures. In 1992, voters passed Amendment 2, banning municipalities from passing anti-discrimination laws that protected gay, lesbian and bisexual people. It earned Colorado the nickname “The Hate State.”
That same history gives the opposition group Families Not Politics hope that the measures can be clawed back.
Prop. 134 and 135 will become law on January 1, but since they aren't constitutional amendments, state lawmakers will have a say in how the laws get written.
Stahl and other LGBTQ advocates are hoping there might be some tweaks to make gender checks less invasive and wiggle room with how school districts enforce the trans sports ban.
“[We] are fighting very hard to make sure that, however this law is implemented, it's done in a way that is the least amount harmful towards our community,” Stahl said.
For Stahl, these measures aren’t theoretical.
“These are real kids who I know,” she said. “In January, there are some across our valley who will not be able to play on their teams anymore.”
For now, she wants to let trans kids know they’re not alone, by starting a project to send local trans kids love letters from the community.
She’s hoping the project will send a message to trans kids: “Lots and lots of people care about you and are there for you,” she said. “[They] are going to keep fighting for you so that you can just focus on growing up and being a kid.”
