When Ashley Stahl first moved to the Roaring Fork Valley nine years ago, she said it wasn’t as LGBTQ-friendly as it is now.
Stahl is a transgender woman and the executive director of PFLAG Roaring Fork Valley, the local chapter of the nationwide LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
Despite the relative support she feels locally, Stahl was not surprised to see two anti-trans initiatives qualify for the statewide ballot in November.
“This is something that I've known was coming for quite a while,” she said.
Initiative 109 would require kids to play on sports teams that match their sex assigned at birth, rather than chosen gender identity. Initiative 110 would ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Protect Our Children successfully campaigned to get the measures on the ballot. On its website, the organization said initiative 109 will protect “girls' dignity, safety, and opportunity,” and likened the restriction on gender-affirming surgery to age minimums for alcohol consumption and voting.
Stahl thinks there are a number of misconceptions about this particular issue. For example, breast reduction surgeries, which can be a form of gender-affirming care, are mostly performed on cisgender boys, rather than transgender boys.
“The more complicated or nuanced the issue is, the easier it is to get people emotional … and to misunderstand,” Stahl said.
But if the surgery initiative passes, the procedure would only be banned for transgender boys. Stahl said that contradicts the logic of the initiative's supporters, who say that all minors are too young to undergo these types of surgeries.
Protect Our Children did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
PFLAG Roaring Fork Valley joined regional organizations like Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) in a campaign against the initiatives, called Families Not Politics.
“We must stand firm against any proposal that would undermine our freedom to make health care decisions that are best for us and our families,” PPRM said in a March press release. “Just like the many anti-abortion ballot measures we’ve defeated in the past.”
Cobalt, a regional organization best known for its abortion fund, also joined the campaign. Laura Chapin, Cobalt’s media communications director, said these measures aren’t just about transgender kids.
“They're about all kids,” she said. “They're about giving the government the ability to decide for you and your family what sports your kids can participate in, and what your kids' future looks like.”
She said the ballot initiatives go against traditional Coloradan values of bodily autonomy and personal privacy.
The general election will be on Nov. 6.
