Fort Collins event connects youth gender care concerns to upcoming Colorado ballot measures

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

“Is it really true that when a confused hurting kid goes to the doctor the doctor turns the knife around and puts it on them and profits from it,” Colorado physician Dr. Travis Morrell asked a Fort Collins audience on November 20. “It is true.”

His remarks were part of From Heartbreak to Hope, an event hosted by Protect Kids Colorado at Dayspring Christian Church that brought together parents, detransitioners, attorneys and policy experts to examine what speakers called a growing collision between gender medicine and parental rights in Colorado.

Speakers at the From Heartbreak to Hope event on November 20. Top row left to right: Dr. Travis Morrell and Dr. James Lindsay. Bottom row left to right: Antoinette De La Cruz, Erin Friday and Erin Lee. Photo credit: Kelly Notafrancesco.

The full event can be viewed here.

A crisis unfolding in Colorado

Protect Kids Colorado Executive Director Erin Lee opened the evening by describing her family’s experience inside a Northern Colorado school. She said her daughter was pulled into what she called “the classroom to clinic pipeline,” beginning with “pornography disguised as lessons” and moving into a secret social transition conducted without parental knowledge.

“It was the scariest year of our entire lives getting our daughter off the classroom to clinic pipeline, and that’s what it is,” she said.

Lee said similar cases continue to emerge statewide. “Tonight is about those who did not get off the conveyor belt,” she said, referring to minors who later regretted gender-related interventions. She also said Children’s Hospital Colorado ranks tenth nationally for what she called “wrong sex butchery of children,” a trend she said has drawn federal scrutiny.

A doctor’s warning

Morrell, chair of Colorado Principled Physicians, described increasing medical intervention on vulnerable youth. He said hospitals have advertised elective mastectomies to teenage girls and private clinics have offered similar procedures to younger patients. He added that Colorado law requires insurers to cover these interventions and sets no minimum age.

Morrell told attendees that he introduced a resolution to a major medical association opposing gender-related medical and surgical interventions on minors. He said the proposal initially received majority support from physicians—“sixty two percent of doctors in Colorado agreed with me that this is harming kids”—before a late influx of student votes reversed the outcome. 

Morrell said reform must begin within medicine. “We have failed to police our profession.” 

The human cost

Colorado detransitioner Antoinette De La Cruz said her transition began as an attempt to cope with longstanding trauma. “It took me almost two decades to realize the error,” she said. “Transitioning didn’t fix anything. It delayed the inevitable. Healing.”

She explained that doctors removed her uterus, ovaries and breasts during the course of her transition. “I trusted them to be the gatekeepers,” De La Cruz shared. “Instead they threw me to the wolves. I was mentally ill and they let me mutilate my body.”

De La Cruz told attendees she experienced life-threatening complications. “I died twice on the table,” she said. “They had to put a machine on me like a leaf blower to breathe for me.”

To illustrate what she believes is happening to minors experiencing gender distress she said, “This ideology is like having a cut on your ankle and standing in sewage water. The infection spreads. Then the limbs are lost. Then the organs shut down. Then comes death.”

“I cannot convey to you in a tangible way the suffering I have felt,” she added, “but I choose to make it meaningful by sharing my story whenever I can.”

Read Antoinette De La Cruz’s full story here.

Legal conflict and national parallels

Attorney and advocate Erin Friday spoke about conflict between parents and institutions in states where gender-related policies have expanded rapidly. She recounted confronting her daughter’s school in California after learning staff had socially transitioned her without notice. “CPS showed up at my door followed by the police,” she said.

Friday said similar dynamics are emerging in Colorado and called gender-related procedures for minors “the biggest medical scandal in human history.” She told attendees that families should not expect the legislature to reverse course and said long-term change will depend on parent involvement and legal challenges.

Understanding the ideas behind the policies

The final featured speaker, Dr. James Lindsay, addressed the philosophical ideas he said helped normalize gender ideology in schools and medicine. To explain the limits of belief he said, “True is true for everybody. If you punch a steel door the door isn’t going to break, your hand is.”

Lindsay said some institutions treat reality as something people construct rather than something objective. “We’ve reached a point where people believe true things don’t apply to them, because they believe [them] hard enough, or because they convince others to pretend along with them,” he said.

He connected this to broader identity-based movements and said clarity is necessary for families navigating the issue. “The antidote is the truth,” he said. “Truth cuts down error no matter who is wrong.”

Questions from Colorado families

Audience questions focused on communication, engagement and next steps. One attendee asked how to reach people firmly committed to gender ideology. Lindsay said, “I don’t try to change the minds of people deep in the ideology. I try to reach the ones at the edges, the ones who can still see the danger.” 

Another parent asked why fewer men are involved. Friday replied that “we need the men back,” and Lindsay added, “Your contributions are missed and they matter.” 

When someone asked about the possibility of change, Friday pointed to recent court rulings limiting gender-related mandates and said those decisions will continue to influence what states can require.

The only path left for Colorado

Speakers throughout the evening said families should not expect the legislature to restrict gender-related surgeries for minors. Speaking after the event Morrell said, “This is the only path forward in Colorado. The legislature won’t do it. The ballot measures are the one chance to protect kids.”

Protect Kids Colorado has begun a statewide push to collect signatures for three measures it wants on the 2026 ballot. The measures address irreversible sex change surgeries on minors, girls sports and locker rooms remaining single sex and stronger penalties for child sex trafficking.

The group’s website asks residents to help gather signatures. It reads, “Ready to join the PKC petition carrier team,” and encourages supporters to pick up a petition packet and “be a voice for our children.”

Information is available at https://www.protectkidscolorado.org.