Colorado Dems ‘Silence’ State GOP To Push Genital Mutilation

Democrats in the Colorado General Assembly bulldozed their way forward to require health insurance to cover genital mutilation for children, kidnap children from parents who do not “affirm” a transgender claim, and make sure the state is the biggest taxpayer-funded abortion enterprise in the country.

Left-wing lawmakers in the state House are advancing two bills related to “transgender” identity, one of which forces healthcare providers to cover everything from chemical castration to genital mutilation in their plans, while the other would codify “misgendering” as child abuse with the ability to strip custody rights from parents who do not “affirm.”

In the Senate, one bill codifies taxpayer-funded abortions, and the other one expands Colorado’s ability to mail abortion pills out-of-state to kill even more babies.

“They want to push their ideology on our children and then take them from us when we don’t affirm it,” Republican state Rep. Jarvis Caldwell told The Federalist on Monday. “On a Sunday of all days, the Colorado House Democrats brought us in to debate and vote on taxpayer-funded abortions. The most egregious moment was when they prevented any debate on HB25-1312. This bill enshrines that if you are having a custody dispute and your child is suffering from gender identity delusions, not affirming those delusions are considered child abuse and grounds for losing custody.”

“The Democrats know this bill is gaining national attention so they specifically used a procedural rule to keep us from speaking on it,” he added. “We have crossed the Rubicon for parental rights with this bill.”

Mutilation And Kidnapping

Democrats in the House started the weekend by using parliamentary tools to restrict Republicans from being able to debate or object to the bill to only two hours.

As The Federalist reported, HB25-1312 would allow Colorado to become a “transition” mill for parents who want to use the “transgender” claims of their children as a weapon in custody battles. As one parent advocate in the Colorado described it, the bill allows “state-enabled kidnapping.”

The bill would require that “a court shall consider deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s gender-affirming health-care services as types of coercive control,” meaning that any parent who does not want to see their child mutilated.

It passed the House on Sunday, after Democrats shut down debate on a bill that “seeks to strip parental rights from parents that even question the wisdom of the trans’ing into a lifelong pharmacological experiment, or refer to their confused kiddo by their birth name,” Republican state Rep. Ken DeGraaf told The Federalist.

The prospect is not theoretical, either. The Federalist spoke to one father in Colorado whose ex-wife is force-transitioning their 14-year-old son by way of court order. The father, who does not want to see his son sterilized or go further down the pathway of dangerous, experimental, and irreversible medical interventions, has lost all say in medical decisions for his son and the right to talk to his son about transgender issues.

Bill 1312 would essentially codify her crazed legal proceedings into standard practice for Colorado families.

The Democrats behind the bill are crazed, too, with state Rep. Yara Zokaie comparing parental rights groups opposed to the destructive bill to the Ku Klux Klan, saying, “A well-stakeholded bill does not need to be discussed with hate groups, and we don’t ask someone passing civil rights legislation to go ask the KKK their opinion.”

“The party that wants to take your children from you for not leading your children down a path of lifelong sterility and lies, thinks that parental advocates are a hate group!” Republican state Rep. Brandi Bradley said in response.

The tandem “transgender” bill in the House, HB25-1309, requires that all health insurance plans sold in the state cover medical gender transition interventions.

“This includes not only counseling and hormone therapy but also a wide range of medical, surgical, and psychiatric treatments, many of which are expensive and irreversible,” Bradley told The Federalist. “Under this bill, these interventions are deemed ‘medically necessary’ if prescribed by any physical or behavioral health provider, which means psychologists — who are not medical doctors — could authorize surgeries or powerful hormone treatments without oversight from a physician.”

The bill has zero age limitations, despite a Republican attempt to add an amendment to restrict children, and would allow minors to seek the interventions without parental consent.

Under the bill, testosterone prescriptions are also removed from Colorado’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program and restricts access to archived records, meaning oversight of abuse and patient outcomes are eliminated.

Insurance companies being required to cover procedures “ranging from hormone therapy to surgeries like phalloplasty, vaginoplasty, and facial reconstruction … will drive up premiums for all Colorado residents, as insurance companies absorb the cost of what were previously considered elective procedures,” Bradley said.

“The bill sponsor — an openly transgender legislator — delivered a speech likening critics to Nazis and racists, deepening partisan divides,” Bradley added. “Critics contend the bill is driven more by ideology than medicine, lacking both long-term research and compassion for those who later regret irreversible changes.”

Fighting Back

Parents’ rights groups in Colorado are fighting back against the encroachment from Democrat lawmakers.

On Monday, a coalition of these groups, called Protect Kids Colorado, filed three ballot measures to protect children from the from predatory Democrats.

One measure prohibits irreversible transgender medical interventions on children 17 years old and younger. “We set age limits on many things in Colorado – from voting, to drinking, to smoking, to signing a contract, because it’s too early for children to make these decisions. For something this serious and permanent, children should not be faced with making such a life altering decision, that will rob them of any reproductive future,” Erin Lee, the measure’s chair, said in a press release.

The other two measures would set a penalty of life in prison without parole for sex trafficking and prohibit males in girls sports, respectively.

‘Fetal Harvesting Empire Of The Nation‘

The Senate bills radically expand abortion by “signing taxpayers’ name on a blank check to pay for anyone making their way to Colorado,” DeGraaf said.

SB25-183 “turns Colorado into the fetal harvesting empire of the nation, with no fiscal restraint or limitations, clearly demonstrating the priorities of their (D)eath cult,” he told The Federalist.

The bill repeals a constitutional amendment that prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars on abortions and adds one, recognizing the right to an abortion and prohibiting Colorado state and local governments from denying, impeding, or discriminating against the exercise of that right, including prohibiting health insurance companies from excluding coverage for abortion,” a bill summary states.

It makes elective abortions a guaranteed benefit under Medicaid and provides continuous, automatic funding for abortions without requiring yearly legislative approval. The Democrats behind the bill argue that Colorado might save money in the end because murdering babies — or, “averted births,” as they put it — is apparently cheaper than covering childbirth.

Accompanying that bill is SB25-129, which “expands Colorado’s status as a sanctuary state for abortion and gender-transition procedures, reinforcing the state’s refusal to cooperate with out-of-state investigations or legal actions concerning ‘legally protected health-care activities,’” Bradley said.

It also allows prescribing doctors to hide their names on prescription labels for abortion drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol.

“This legislation attempts to override the rule of law in other states and shield controversial medical practices from accountability under the guise of ‘protection,’” Bradley said. “By weaponizing state power to block interstate legal cooperation, Colorado risks becoming a hub for procedures that many states — and many citizens — consider unethical, unsafe, or inappropriate for minors.”

Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.