For LGBTQ people in Colorado, the Nov. 5 election has been a mixed bag to say the least. Aside from Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump, Democrats nationwide have suffered defeat from Republicans, many of whom have articulated bigoted anti-LGBTQ stances on the campaign trail. But on the statewide level, Coloradans passed constitutional protections for abortion and gay marriage, and Democrats have largely maintained their control over the state legislature, albeit losing their house supermajority.
Despite its legal and political advantages, Colorado has still suffered from an increase in anti-LGBTQ hate along with the rest of the country. Two years ago, in November 2022, a shooter killed five people and injured 18 at Club Q, a gay bar in Colorado Springs – an attack that was likely fueled in large part by demonization of the LGBTQ community in Colorado and nationally.
During this year’s presidential race, Trump’s campaign spent over $29 million on TV ads attacking Harris’ record of support for gender-affirming care for incarcerated people, despite public opinion polls ranking trans issues as the least important issue to many voters.
Additionally, during this election cycle, much concern has been raised over Project 2025, a presidential transition plan formulated by the far-right Heritage Foundation. The document contains sweeping plans to overhaul the U.S. government, including filling government roles with conservative loyalists and ending the separation between church and state. In terms of its impact on LGBTQ Americans, Project 2025 promises to, among other things, roll back federal antidiscrimination policies, reinstate Trump’s previous ban on transgender people serving in the military, and take trans healthcare out of Medicare and Medicaid.
In campaign speeches this year, Trump seemed to distance himself from Project 2025. But following his electoral victory, numerous conservative pundits have openly spoken about the plan, insinuating that Trump and his allies have intended from the start to put Project 2025 into action.
Since Project 2025 came to light earlier this year, advocates and policymakers have been working to understand the full scope of its implications, as well as to prepare responses.
“A lot of folks within our affiliate network across the country and our national office have been digging into a lot of these issues over the past year to try to prep for this outcome,” said Anaya Robinson, a policy analyst at the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “And I mean, when you have a 900-page document that’s looking to attack nearly every facet of protective law within our country, it’s hard to get all that work done in a year, you know?”
Colorado’s statewide protections for LGBTQ people are ranked as some of the strongest in the country. These laws have made Colorado a legal safe haven for people fleeing the recent surges in anti-LGBTQ legislation in red states — something that is sure to increase if federal protections fall, too. Already, a Colorado group helping to relocate trans people out of unsafe states has seen a massive rise in interest. Colorado’s “shield laws,” enacted in 2023, will guard those people against prosecution for seeking care that may be banned in red states.
The law, SB23-188, “protects not only gender affirming care but reproductive care as well. So that law essentially created protections both for providers within the state of Colorado providing those types of health care. It also created protections for folks coming from other states where that healthcare is, for whatever reason, not available when they come to Colorado to receive it,” Robinson explained.
“Those protections will remain so long as any federal law does not preempt it,” he continued.
Federal preemption of state laws was a recurring concern during the Colorado Times Recorder’s interview with Robinson. During this month’s elections, Republicans also seized control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. If a Republican trifecta were to pass laws conflicting with those in Colorado, the federal laws could take precedence.
“One of the things that we are working to figure out is how do we maintain these protections under a law passed with preemption? So, I mean, the long and short of it is we don’t know yet,” Robinson said.
One place this could come into effect would be with Colorado’s non-legal name change law, passed earlier this year. The law requires that, if a student requests to use a different name, teachers and staff at Colorado schools must honor that request. One section of Project 2025 includes changes to federal education policies that would disallow non-legal name changes or prevent school employees from being “forced” to honor name change requests. Robinson said that the specifics of how this is carried out – whether through executive action or legislation – would determine the fate of Colorado’s law.
“If it’s a rule change, then there’s a likelihood that our law would supersede a federal rule. If there is a federal law change that preempts state law, then it would effectively nullify the nondiscrimination statute in Colorado, which is true of any federal law preempting state law in any of the protections that exist in Colorado in those situations,” he explained.
The Trump administration’s attacks on LGBTQ rights will likely take the form of rolling back existing federal policies, too. One potential example is Title IX, which the Biden administration expanded to contain protections for trans youths in sports. In this case, if the Biden administration’s rule is reversed, trans youths will still be protected — at least in Colorado.
“Gender identity and gender expression are expressly protected under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. So in regards to the public accommodations portion of that statute, there would be arguable protections that would still exist for trans youth in sports within the public school realm,” said Robinson.
The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act is one of many newer laws providing broad state-level protections for LGBTQ Coloradans. But there are older statutes still on the books that the legislature has not needed to nullify yet due to federal policies.
One example: Colorado has previously banned same-sex marriage on both a legislative and constitutional level. Both of these were effectively rendered null by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. However, current conservative Justices have indicated that they might overturn Obergefell as they did with Roe v. Wade in 2022, meaning the bans would come back into effect. Colorado voters voted this month to repeal the constitutional marriage ban, but the statutory ban, passed by the legislature in 2000, remains on the books.
“A bill [to repeal the statutory ban] would need to be read and passed before SCOTUS could overturn Obergefell to ensure that same sex marriages in Colorado would remain valid,” said Robinson.
An issue that is particularly pertinent for transgender Coloradans is healthcare coverage. Project 2025 includes plans to remove gender-affirming care from both Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare, which is reserved for people over 65 or with certain disabilities, is entirely run by the federal government.
On the other hand, Medicaid, which is reserved for people with low income, is run jointly by both the federal and state governments, which could give Colorado a chance to step in.
“But in a lot of cases, states do have the ability to cover things under Medicaid that the federal government will not cover. When that happens, 100% of those costs are an obligation of the state,” Robinson told the Colorado Times Recorder. “So there would be, if the federal government banned gender affirming care through Medicaid, but it didn’t say that states can’t still provide it. There is a potential for Colorado to be able to absorb those costs without any federal match.”
Even with Colorado’s strong protections, the future remains uncertain. While Trump’s transition team is already preparing for its transition with cabinet picks, how and when attacks on LGBTQ rights will take place is still up in the air.
“I think there’s probably things that we haven’t seen yet that we will have to act on in the future. I think making sure that, we’re all in conversations with one another, with our partners, with community on a regular basis to know what is going on at all times as much as possible because there are going to be gaps in everybody’s planning. There are going to be gaps in everybody’s thinking and no one organization and no one person is going to be able to fix all of it. We have to do it together,” said Robinson.
He concluded, “I think a reasonable level of concern is necessary right now. And I think that we need to make sure that we’re not all moving to panic.”
Along with advocacy groups like the ACLU, Colorado’s Democratic political leaders are also gearing up for incoming legal battles. Gov. Jared Polis announced last week he was helping to found an organization which will “safeguard democracy” in the case of overreach from the Trump administration. Attorney General Phil Weiser, in a statement to the Colorado Times Recorder, stressed his office’s responsibility to protect Coloradans’ rights.
“Protecting rights is a core responsibility of the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. Since I became Attorney General in 2019, we have worked tirelessly to protect the rights and dignity of the LGBTQ community in employment, health care, access to goods and services, adoption, and combating hate crimes, to name a few areas. My office is prepared to challenge efforts to rollback LGBTQ rights—we’re in it for the long haul,” said Weiser.
Statewide LGBTQ advocacy group One Colorado has published a full guide on Colorado’s LGBTQ protections, which can be found here. The organization did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
