It’s no longer an exaggeration or hyperbole: In Colorado, liberal activists are coming after people’s children. At least, they are when disputes over a minor’s “gender identity” are involved.
The Democrat-controlled Colorado House recently passed the “Kelly Loving Act,” which proponents say promotes transgender rights. But, as the state legislature’s website outlines, this bill would label a parent who does not go along with a minor’s declared name, identity, or pronouns as engaged in “coercive control.” It then directs family courts to consider this in custody decisions. Basically, parents could be legally punished and possibly even lose custody for how they decide to handle a gender-confused child’s identity struggles.
What’s more, this legislation isn’t even limited to traditional cases of gender dysphoria, where one feels “born in the wrong body” and wants to live as if one is the other sex. While the best way to handle this mental condition in minors is disputed, this is at least a genuine, documented psychological phenomenon. Yet, on its face, this bill could also punish parents who refuse to go along with baseless, recently invented social trends such as “nonbinary identity” or “neopronouns,” where young people ask to be referred to as inanimate objects such as slug/slugself or fairy/fairyself.
Democratic lawmakers are moving this legislation full steam ahead, with one even comparing groups that oppose the bill to white supremacist groups that oppose racial integration. (Yes, seriously.)
Suffice it to say this is a radical overstep that tramples on parental rights and treats a genuine difference in opinion about a complicated scenario as akin to a parent denying his or her child life-saving cancer treatments. As evolutionary psychologist and Manhattan Institute fellow Colin Wright put it on his website, Reality’s Last Stand, “Instead of ensuring children’s safety, this bill would mandate speech, codify a radical ideology into law, and weaponize family courts to enforce compliance.”
Wright notes that proponents of the legislation framed it as an issue of “safety” and suicide prevention. But while activists claim that “affirming” a minor’s gender identity is the right approach according to “settled science,” this simply isn’t true. He explains, “No good evidence exists suggesting that ‘gender-affirming’ treatments — social transition, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgeries — are grounded in rigorous, evidence-based medicine. On the contrary, every systematic review conducted to date has concluded that the evidence supporting these interventions is of very low quality.”
So, parents can absolutely disagree in good faith about the best way to handle a child experiencing gender dysphoria or adopting a new social identity trend such as “nonbinary.” It doesn’t make them bad parents, let alone abusive or guilty of “coercive control” of their children. It’s simply indefensible to attempt to use the family court system to override parental autonomy and force one highly dubious viewpoint on a complicated medical and social debate onto parents — with the threat of losing their children.
COLORADO DEMOCRATS WANT TO MAKE ‘MISGENDERING’ ILLEGAL
It’s also a fantastic way to bring about more backlash against the LGBT community. Polling already shows a decline in support for gay and transgender rights. If activists successfully lump in a push to take people’s children away from everyday gay people, it will only further convince people that things have gotten out of control and that supporting LGBT rights was a mistake. This is entirely predictable. Messing with people’s children is perhaps the most surefire way possible to light public support for your cause on fire. But it may be too late to stop this mistake from being made.
Unfortunately, as Wright explains, this disturbing law looks likely to pass the Colorado Senate as well, which is overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats. It will then go to the desk of Gov. Jared Polis, who often embraces more moderate positions on economic issues but typically goes along with the activist crowd on social issues. Here’s hoping that Polis sees sense and sends this legislation to the dustbin of history where it belongs.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
