Ari Armstrong's Web Log (Main) | Archives | Terms of Use
Putting the Trans Bill in Context
Fearmongering about the bill and quoting people out of context does not help.
Copyright © 2025 by Ari Armstrong
April 12, 2025
Why do I write about transgender issues? Various reasons: I hate to see anyone demonized or scapegoated. Better-understanding the interplay between gender and biological sex potentially helps all of us better-understand ourselves. The issue has religious and political implications, and I'm interested in those.
I wrote the above lines in a recent email in which I linked to my two recent articles about House Bill 25-1312, which I'll call the transgender rights bill without implying my support for all of its language. In my April 4 article for Complete Colorado, I focus on the last section of the bill, which imposes censorship. That problem is sufficient to oppose the bill. In my April 8 article for the Colorado Times Recorder, I focus on the religious debate, with an emphasis on the "trans-exclusionary" stance of many conservative Christians. So I'm in the unusual (but reasonable!) position of supporting transgender rights but opposing this particular bill.
Unsurprisingly, this bill has generated a lot of controversy even beyond Colorado. So, especially since I read the bill and listened to over nine hours of testimony about it, I thought I could helpfully comment on related discussions.
Caldara Is Partly Right
I basically agree with Jon Caldara, who runs the Independence Institute, which publishes Complete Colorado, that the bill is censorial, but I disagree with Caldara's trans-exclusionary stance. He writes:
Beyond disempowering parents' right to raise their own kids and outlawing gender-based uniforms in schools, this bill not only prohibits misgendering or 'deadnaming' a person in public, but it also makes it a "discriminatory act" under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. . . . Misgendering means referring to a man with gender dysphoria and who identifies as a woman, as, well, a man. In other words, this law would criminalize telling the truth.
Yet again, Caldara pushes a sort of conceptual essentialism, in which the term "man" can have one and only one meaning, and that meaning must be linked to biological sex. But the terms "man" and "woman" (and comparable terms) have two overlapping yet distinct meanings, one pertaining to biological sex, the other pertaining to the psychological and social phenomenon of gender. So it's possible to be a man in terms of biological sex and a woman in terms of gender. This is not difficult to grasp.
I'll mention something a little humorous here. In my article for the (self-consciously progressive) Times Recorder, initially I unintentionally used the "wrong pronouns" for two people, and I had to go back and correct that. And I was trying hard to be nice about this! I also confess that I sometimes genuinely struggle with using "they/them" as singular pronouns. In some contexts their use seems natural, in others, not so much. I think this illustrates that, even when people are trying to call people by their preferred names and pronouns, it can be easy to slip up. Although the bill in question makes allowances for casual slip-ups, I do worry that in some cases some people would would try to categorize casual slip-ups as intentional discrimination.
Grant's Commentary
In my article on the religious debates, I also review some of the debates within the atheist community. An essay by Kat Grant provoked an uncharitable response from evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne. Grant has written a follow-up first, second, and third article.
Grant is transgender, nonbinary specifically, and goes by they/them pronouns. Grand explains why the pronouns are important:
There is no way for me to "pass" as my gender in the way that binary trans people can. And being forcibly gendered is a dysphoria trigger. To say it makes me deeply uncomfortable is a radical understatement, and while I have coping skills developed with the help of a therapist, I am also well within my rights to set boundaries with people to attempt to mitigate the harm. Most people respect them, some do not, but those are boundaries that I have no choice but to communicate for my own health and psychological safety. To ask me to ignore my identity or set it aside is the same as asking me to be closeted. And I've done my time in the closet, experienced that pain and its consequences, and I refuse to go back.
If this seems strange to cisgender people, just imagine how bizarre and off-putting it would be for someone to constantly refer to you by the wrong pronouns. I'm very comfortably a man in both the biological and psychological senses, so if someone made a point to call me a woman and she/her, I'd be quite put off. (That said, I think ideally we'd move culturally to a single set of non-gendered pronouns. And that would save they/them for plural use!)
Grant also summarizes the dispute with Coyne:
Since the beginning of this conflict Coyne and Dawkins both have grossly misrepresented my work to further their anti-trans goals, likely because my actual argument undermines them. I never said that sex doesn't exist or isn't real, just that it's not a particularly helpful framework for defining "woman," particularly in a legal/policy context.
Generally Grant lays out a reasonable position.
On Stakeholding
Here is how Fox News characterizes part of the exchange over the bill: "Concerned parents of trans kids compared to 'hate groups' by Colorado Dem: Wouldn't 'ask the KKK' for opinion."
Unsurprisingly, Fox's take is wildly misleading. However, the article, by Jamie Joseph, does offer some of the relevant facts.
Toward the end of the April 1 committee hearing for the bill, Republican Rep. Jarvis Caldwell commented, "I'm curious . . . if parent groups that are not part of the LGBT community if they were involved" in the drafting of the bill.
The salient fact that neither Joseph nor Caldwell convey is that the so-called "parent groups" in question in fact are overtly trans-exclusionary groups that happen to involve some trans-exclusionary parents.
For example, Erin Lee, in testifying against the bill, said that she was not approached in the stakeholding stage. As I've written, Lee now is very explicitly trans-exclusionary, meaning she rejects the very existence of authentically transgender people.
Part of the background here, as I've written, is that the Southern Policy Law Center has included Moms for Liberty among "hate and antigovernment groups." See SPLC's report on the organization. I think it's very fair to say that Moms for Liberty has promoted bigotry against LGBTQ people, and especially transgender people.
Going back to Joseph's article: In response to Caldwell, Democratic Rep. Yara Zokaie said, "A well-stakeholdered bill does not need to be discussed with hate groups. . . . [W]e don't ask someone passing civil rights legislation to go ask the KKK their opinion."
Zokaie is not referring to all groups that include parents who worry that a child who claims to be transgender might not actually be transgender. Zokaie is referring specifically to "parent groups" that are very overtly trans-exclusionary and bigoted toward transgender people. Yet Joseph suggests otherwise through her lie of omission. (That said, Zokaie could have been more clear about whom she was talking.)
Incidentally, Caldwell too seems to be trans-exclusionary. In a clip played by Fox News, Caldwell refers to a transgender identity as a "confusion" and "delusion."
I emailed Caldwell: "In a recent clip reported on Fox, you refer to a claim to be transgender as 'confusion' and 'delusion.' I'm curious (for the record): Do you think that there is such a thing as an authentic transgender person, or do you think that all claims to be transgender are delusional?" If he emails back I'll post his reply here.
What the Bill Says
In the same clip, Caldwell says, "House Bill 1312 says that, if your child is confused about their gender identity, and you don't affirm that confusion, that delusion, then you are guilty of child abuse, and you can lose custody of your children."
Caldwell's remarks are wildly misleading. Guilt in a child-abuse case refers to a criminal matter, but that is not at all what this bill is about. Rather, this bill tweaks the legal language surrounding custody disputes between separated parents.
Let's again look at 1312, referencing the April 6 version.
Existing statutes define "coercive control" as "a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating actions, including assaults or other abuse, that is used to harm, punish, or frighten an individual." Bill 1312 says that coercive control "includes . . . deadnaming and misgendering," and the bill directs courts hearing custody battles to "consider" such factors. Notably, courts already can and do consider such factors; this bill formalizes the matter.
I think the language of the bill does not properly account for cases in which a parent genuinely and reasonably doubts a child's proclaimed transgender identity and kindly pushes back. On the other hand, the bill says only that courts need to consider deadnaming and misgendering, not that parents definitely will lose custody, or have visitation limited, over such matters. So, although I have concerns about the bill, Caldwell's characterization of it is misleading at best. The bill's language enabling censorship is far more concerning.
Will the Adults in the Room Please Stand Up?
That we have come to expect certain conservative activists and journalists to fearmonger over transgender issues does not excuse the practice.
That many transgender-rights activists are understandably infuriated by the bigotry directed at transgender people from certain quarters does not excuse them for attempting to impose censorship, as 1312 does.
My question is, where are the responsible adults in the room who want to reasonably extend inclusion to transgender people while passing laws that honor the Constitution and people's rights?