By Erin Friday and Erin Lee | Wall Street Journal
We are both mothers whose daughters went through a phase in which they believed they were boys. We never affirmed that belief, although their schools and much of the broader culture did. Eventually, our daughters recognized their true identities and ceased identifying themselves as “transgender.”
A bill under consideration in Colorado (where Ms. Lee lives) would define parents like us as child abusers.
The measure would harm vulnerable children and violate the U.S. Constitution in multiple ways.
Lawmakers including state Reps. Yara Zokaie and Javier Mabrey have likened parents like us to Klansmen, and their legislation is expected to pass the state Senate and proceed to Gov. Jared Polis’s desk.
A similar bill in California (where Ms. Friday lives) was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024. He noted that in custody disputes, his state’s family courts already favor the parent who affirms the child’s claim to be a different sex.
Since at least 2016, California Child Protective Services has removed children from homes where parents refused to accede to their children’s social or medical “gender transition.” Colorado has adopted similar practices, and so have other states, including conservative ones like Indiana and Montana.
Lawmakers in Sacramento just killed a bill written by Ms. Friday that would have defined child abuse to exclude such refusal.
The Colorado bill, designated HB25-1312, seeks to formalize these practices.
Should it pass, parents who use a minor child’s legal name—a name that typically requires parental consent to be changed—could be deemed abusive. In custody disputes, the parent who declines to use the child’s chosen name and third-person pronouns—irrespective of age, mental-health status and the consistency of the identity—could be denied custody or even visitation.
If both parents reject the notion that their child is a different sex or “nonbinary,” asexual or another “gender identity,” they risk complete loss of custody. The bill would empower Colorado courts to disregard out-of-state custody decisions—a direct violation of the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause.
This legislation also poses significant threats to free expression.
It could be used to prevent parents from publicly discussing the circumstances surrounding their loss of custody. Such parents would be prohibited from speaking truthfully about their child’s medical or psychological interventions, thereby muzzling dissent and obscuring the role of ideologically influenced child protective agencies in the removal of these children to “chosen” families.
Family courts are increasingly issuing gag orders to prevent public scrutiny of their decisions.
HB25-1312 would invert the parent-child relationship by granting children authority over their parents.
Minors would have the legal power to determine their name and the pronouns by which others refer to them, compelling their parents to conform under threat of legal consequence. Children could report their parents to state authorities, a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. The law would influence how extended family members, the media and the general public refer to the child.
The bill even violates the freedom of the press.
It mandates that publishers may not “deadname” or “misgender” people—i.e., accurately report their given names and sexes. This restriction would apply to any publisher reporting on a Colorado resident, publishing within the state, or making material accessible online in Colorado. The mainstream media has remained largely silent about this assault on its freedom, in part because many media organizations already endorsed transgender ideology.
HB25-1312 would compel people to affirm the lie that sex is a matter of personal choice rather than biology.
It is an assault on reality and on the foundational freedom that makes the United States a beacon of liberty.
Ms. Friday is a lawyer and president of Our Duty USA. Ms. Lee is a co-founder of Protect Kids Colorado.
COMMENTARY ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.