This is the fourth in a five-part series for The Colorado Dream: Ending the Hate State. The stories in this series are part of the KUNC podcast The Colorado Dream, airing on Mondays beginning October 7. The podcast is available for download wherever you may listen to podcasts and on KUNC.org.
Teens trickle into a Student Equity Alliance (SEA) meeting at a high school in a Colorado mountain town, wearing slouchy backpacks, sneakers and hoodies. During these meetings, which are for LGBTQ+ students and their friends, teens hang out and play video games and also get involved in issues, like the creation of gender neutral bathrooms.
鈥淚 think having a space for people to freely experiment with their identity and not have to worry about what external input might be, whether that's from parents or peers pushing them in one direction or another is super important,鈥� an 18-year-old student said.
The lack of parental involvement in the SEA is key for some of these teens. One student lies to their family about going to the club while another no longer mentions the SEA. When they first told their stepdad about it he said, 鈥業t鈥檚 brainwashing. This club is turning you queer.鈥�
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D, a 17-year-old senior, explains that their parents now track their location following an incident years ago at a Prism meeting, an SEA-type club for middle schoolers.
鈥淢y dad showed up. He showed up without my knowledge and was very, very angry with me,鈥� D said.
D鈥檚 dad was upset because the child had lied about going to the meeting. D remembers leaving with their father that day, crying silent tears.
鈥淚 wasn't allowed to return, which was quite embarrassing and a little scary,鈥� said D.
鈥榃ho鈥檚 raising your kids?鈥�
Thirty years ago, Colorado became known as "The Hate State,鈥� thanks to something called Amendment 2. The measure prevented cities and towns from protecting lesbian, gay and bisexual people from discrimination. A few years later, Amendment 2 was struck down. Much has changed since then. These days, Colorado is seen as a progressive state with inclusive laws.
While varying sexual identities have become much more accepted, the topic of gender is now heating up in our politics, doctor鈥檚 offices and public education.
For D and their dad J, the incident at the after-school club was an important moment, teeing up conflicts over identity that would unfold over the coming years. D, a gender non-conforming teen who uses they/them pronouns, learned to expect anger from their dad. J learned to expect secrecy.
KUNC is using both father and child鈥檚 middle initials to protect their privacy in their small town.
After forcing his child to leave that day, J says he was frustrated. Not only did the club lack permission slips, he says he also wasn鈥檛 allowed in to observe. Later on, J found out D was eating lunch in a teacher鈥檚 classroom instead of in the cafeteria with the other students.
鈥淎nd this teacher was writing my kid letters in the summer saying, 鈥業 hope all is going well for you.鈥� You know, after she graduated middle school, 鈥業 see you, I know who you really are.鈥� This adult sway and influence that definitely is not in school curriculum, definitely was overstepping her bounds,鈥� said J.
Back then, the district lacked policies and guidelines related to gender.
One administrator said if that type of conversation between a teacher and student happened now, a counselor would have likely been brought in to help.
Over time, D would experiment with pronouns and eventually start using a new name in high school. J forgets when exactly he found out.
"You know, I haven鈥檛 been involved at all. They didn't tell me anything," said J. "I knew about it before graduation. They used her new name at graduation."
Practices are evolving. In September, the district鈥檚 board of education adopted a name change policy in keeping with a . Students can use a name at school that aligns with their gender identity but making it official would require a parent鈥檚 signature.
Some of these schools now have gender neutral bathrooms. Looking ahead, the district is considering the possibility of comprehensive guidelines to address other aspects of gender inclusivity, as these issues are coming up more frequently.
While Colorado is making changes to be more supportive of transgender and nonbinary people, and youth more specifically, others states have advanced legislation . These policies are politicized and therefore controversial; the issues they highlight are deeply personal.
As a parent, J felt unprepared, caught off guard and thrown into identity issues that he did not fully understand.
鈥淚t would have been nice to have been involved in that conversation, maybe six or seven years ago, when this stuff was starting to go on so that I could support my kid,鈥� J said. 鈥淭hat's what it comes down to, for me. Who's raising your kids? Is it me, or is it the school who decides?鈥�
鈥楪ender wasn鈥檛 really a thing in my mind鈥�
Growing up, D felt like a tomboy, always hanging out in the shed with their dad.
鈥淟ike, I know what a wrench is,鈥� D said. 鈥淚 know my way around a shop. Gender wasn't really a thing in my mind when I was little, because it didn't have to be.鈥�
In middle school, D was terrified of puberty. Around this time, they started talking about queerness with their theater friends and going to Prism club. In 9th grade, they began using a new first name.
Finally, D decided to come out to their family a few years ago, on Christmas. Eventually they blurted it out, overcoming nerves and a racing heartbeat.
鈥淭he overall idea that I was trying to say was that something is different,鈥� D said. 鈥淎nd I ended up coming out to everyone, and I said it, and I was like, 鈥楾hey/them pronouns.鈥欌��
D is figuring out their identity, as are other Colorado kids. , around two out of every 100 Colorado high schoolers identified as nonbinary. Three out of every 100 identified as transgender.
鈥淢y dad's, unfortunately, his first response was, 鈥榊ou'll always be my daughter,鈥� which is not the best thing to say,鈥� D said with a laugh. 鈥淗e was trying to be supportive, but he kind of just missed the whole point.鈥�
Now, a year and a half later, D is growing up. They love photography and napping in the sun. They are an excellent student and graduated with a 4.1 GPA this past Spring. In late May, as J packed for a summer trip, both father and teen felt like time together was running out鈥� D was going to be leaving for college in August.
鈥淲e've already made a lot of memories. We're hoping for one last hurrah, one last good time,鈥� J said.
On a sunny morning, J cleaned and ran errands for the upcoming road trip with his family, a long drive through Wyoming, Montana and into Canada. This adventure would be one of many spent traveling and riding dirt bikes all over the country.
鈥淥ur whole lives were spent, like, 鈥極h, where are we going to take the kids? What are we going to do with the kids?鈥� You know, it's like you spend your whole life building this family and then鈥ollege!,鈥� J said.
鈥榃hy would your parents not be included in this process?鈥�
Some Northern Colorado school districts lack guidelines for how to support transgender and non-binary students, instead addressing issues as they come up. Others have written procedures for when a student wants to socially transition that address how to handle names, pronouns, sports team participation and bathrooms. Parental involvement is suggested but generally optional.
鈥淚f kids are afraid to tell their parents, that's information. We need to listen to them and we need to say, 鈥極kay, so why would your parents not be included in this process? Let's talk about that,鈥� said Dr. Bethy Leonardi, the co-director of a Queer Endeavor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
She has worked with Northern Colorado communities, including Boulder Valley School District, to implement .
The reasons for excluding parents from these discussions range from concerns for student safety to fear of conflict. Plus, Leonardi says gender identity isn鈥檛 something negative that should automatically be reported to parents.
鈥淭here's nothing bad about a student becoming,鈥� Leonardi said. 鈥淚t's beautiful. And if you can promise me that you're going to make this experience beautiful with them鈥� beautifully complex, hard, all the things that coming out as anything other than what counts as normal is, then yeah. But that's not the promise that we have from parents.鈥�
鈥楶arents might not be safe鈥�
How to handle gender inclusion in schools is a major political issue at the local, state and national level.
The Supreme Court recently paused for transgender students in several states. In Colorado, those protections will stand and expands on them. District-level gender guidelines and policies are based, in part, on these regulations.
"It really is a sort of school-by-school kind of determination," Professor Nancy Chi Cantalupo, an associate professor of law at Wayne State University, said of the application of anti-discrimination law in public education. "What I'm saying everybody should be doing, which is sitting down and figuring out what are the rules, the legal rules that we need to follow? And then what do we want to do for our community? What is appropriate for us to do? What are our values?"
Meanwhile, families across Colorado are wrestling with the complexities of gender identity. Some believe students should have the time and space to explore. Others say that parents should be involved, because they are the parents. Period.
鈥淚 have seen so many kids struggle from trying to make the transgender label fit that I believe the ideology is harmful when it's put in front of kids,鈥� Erin Lee, a mother of three from Larimer County said.
Following an experience her middle schooler had at an LGBTQ+ focused club in Poudre School District, Lee ran a failed ballot measure this year to require schools to notify parents if a child is questioning their gender.
, backed by Protect Kids Colorado, a religious political advocacy group, would have directed schools to contact families within 48 hours if a child is changing pronouns or using a different bathroom.
Lee alleges that during a Gender and Sexualities Alliance meeting in 2021, a guest speaker talked to her child about gender, attraction and queerness.
鈥淭hey repeatedly reiterated that parents might not be safe, that this is a confidential meeting, that what you hear in here, keep in here,鈥� Lee said.
Poudre School district wouldn鈥檛 confirm the details of the GSA meeting that day but a spokesperson did write in an email to KUNC that the district does not condone anyone suggesting that students should lie to their families.
Under the , a student essentially has the right to live out their gender identity at school. Parental involvement isn鈥檛 required but according to a district spokesperson, most students do include their parents.
The Lees, along with another family, sued Poudre School District alleging a . Last year, a federal judge dismissed the case.
They aren鈥檛 the only ones. Earlier this year, an Adams County family claiming educators encouraged their child to socially transition without their consent.
In September, another family against Jefferson County Public Schools, claiming their daughter was assigned to share a bed with a transgender girl during a field a trip.
Terri Wilson, a philosopher of education at the University of Colorado Boulder says that beneath the politics and rhetoric are real feelings, values that she describes as moral claims: some wanting students to have safe spaces to explore, others wanting parents to know about what happens at school.
"I think that's why there is a conflict, is that these are deeply felt moral principles that people are expressing. So I think that's a very generous and generative way of seeing the conflict," said Wilson.
鈥業鈥檇 still be living for other people鈥�
D, the high schooler who grew up in the mountains riding dirt bikes, says they have benefitted from exploring their gender at school, confident nothing from the SEA meetings would get back to their dad.
If teachers had been required to notify D鈥檚 parents, they think they would have been too scared to explore their identity.
鈥淚 think I would definitely still be elementary-school-me. I think I'd be doing only sports and kind of trying to live for my parents,鈥� D said. 鈥淪o I think I would definitely be shoved into a box and not really know who I was.鈥�
D鈥檚 dad J, on the other hand, worries about his child鈥檚 gender identity. In it, he sees a more difficult path with more struggle.
鈥淎nd I don't mean it in a negative way toward the LGBTQ community. And I don't want to draw a conclusion and say it's because they're LGBTQ. But what I will say is that statistically, that community has a way higher incidence of drug use, drug abuse, suicide,鈥� J said.
Non-binary and transgender teens do experience . In Colorado, non-binary youth seriously consider suicide at more than three times the rate of their peers. Stigma, , and rejection by family in these mental health outcomes.
鈥淣ow she's trying on this new identity and hanging out with these new people and painting herself as non-binary or trans in that way. You know, I'm afraid that she's going to take this off to college,鈥� J said.
鈥業ts a beautiful thing鈥�
Since D came out two years ago, a lot has changed. They graduated from high school in May. J has become more aware of how his anger and confusion over gender made his relationship with D more strained, at times. Both have been thinking about the separation as D leaves for college.
鈥淚t's sad,鈥� J said. 鈥淚'm sure that I'm going to cry the whole way home. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. Life's impermanent. And that's what you knew was going to happen all along.鈥�
Both say the road trip up north went well; they spent a lot of time together and got along for the most part.
鈥淭hankfully, he did use my name a lot. He still struggles with pronouns, which is okay, but it's clear that he's putting in the effort at this point, which I'm very thankful for,鈥� D said in a voice memo the day they got back to Colorado. 鈥淎nd I'm glad we had this trip to, like, really connect. We went on some drives, just us two to kind of go look for wildlife and just talk. So that was pretty fun.鈥�
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It's taken decades, but Colorado has shed the nickname it never wanted, the Hate State. Voters elected the nation鈥檚 first openly-gay governor, Jared Polis, in 2018 empowering lawmakers to pass laws protecting people from discrimination based on their sexuality and gender.
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Credits
The Colorado Dream: 鈥淓nding the Hate State" is a production from KUNC 暗黑爆料 and a member of the NPR Podcast Network.
This episode is hosted and produced by Stephanie Daniel with reporting by Leigh Paterson and editing by Sean Corcoran. The theme song was composed by Jason Paton. Michelle Redo sound designed and mixed the episode. Digital editing and social promotion by Jennifer Coombes. Photos by Rachel Woolf and Leigh Paterson. Artwork by Jenn de la Fuente. Music from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Session's track .
Special thanks to Tre鈥檝ell Anderson, Leigh Paterson, Kim Rias, Robert Leja, Gabe Allen, Mike Arnold and Tammy Terwelp, KUNC鈥檚 president and CEO.
