Colorado voters passed two ballot measures on November 3 banning mutilating gender surgeries on minors and restricting males from competing in female sports. This makes Colorado the 28th state to have both measures.

Proposition 135 enacted a full ban on puberty blockers, hormones, and irreversible gender surgeries. The proposition stated that children “lack the maturity to make permanent, life-altering medical decisions.” The measure also noted that Colorado already prohibits children from making other life-altering decisions available to adults and that irreversible medical procedures should be one of them. 

“Medical treatments or interventions that attempt to surgically alter a minor child’s biological sex often result in serious, irreversible consequences, including sterility,” reads the proposition. The measure also prohibits private health insurance coverage and Medicaid reimbursements for these procedures.

Proposition 135 passed by slightly more than 100,000 votes with a 51.9 percent to 48.1 margin.

The other measure, Proposition 134, requires all sports programs in the state from the elementary level to the collegiate level be designated as “male only” or “female only” based on sex-characteristics unless the team or sport is designated as co-ed. The measure also prohibits the state from investigating or penalizing schools for offering female-only sports teams.  Proposition 134 passed with 52.2 percent of the majority vote.

Both laws will take effect January 1, 2027. 

While these laws passed in Colorado with bipartisan support from voters, these protections can face changes or even elimination from the Democrat-controlled state legislature since they are only statutory measures and not state constitutional amendments. Despite the will of the voters, Colorado Governor-elect Phil Weiser said the state will have to review the measures to see “what adjustments are necessary.”

In addition to Colorado, Arizona and Washington also passed related measures. Voters in Washington approved the state’s “Defending Equity in Interscholastic Sports Act” (Measure 638) barring males from female sports in K-12 schools while Arizona voters passed Proposition 318 extending the same protection to female sports while adding restroom and locker room use restrictions to only one’s corresponding biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Seattle Public Schools Board of Directors have already filed suit against Washington’s Measure 638 to block the voter-approved measure from taking effect. 

Major U.S. medical associations have begun to back off recommending surgical treatments for gender confusion. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended “that surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.” The American Medical Association stated that gender intervention surgeries “should be generally deferred to adulthood.”

The groundbreaking 2024 Cass Review, which revealed there is “remarkably weak evidence” that gender procedures help children, stated plainly that gender confusion is “most likely to desist” with age. Both the Cass Review and a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Report have documented the need to prioritize mental health therapies before resorting to irreversible medical procedures. 

Liberty Counsel has represented licensed counselors who have used talk therapy to help many people, including children to help them understand their distress before making irreversible decisions. In its litigation against city ordinances banning talk therapy for gender confusion, and in U.S. Supreme Court briefs regarding state level bans, Liberty Counsel has noted that counseling should be a first-line intervention for gender confusion as a viable alternative to experimental, harmful, and often irreversible drugs and procedures.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Colorado has joined the growing number of states protecting children from mutilating gender interventions and protecting women and girls in athletics from intrusive gender-confused males. These ballot initiatives in Colorado and in other states reflect common sense safeguards grounded in biological reality, safety, and well-being. False gender ideology is corrosive and harmful. These measures should be protected and faithfully implemented on behalf of children and women and girls in these states.”