Biological sex and transgender rights for youth at the center of Colorado ballot measures
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Colorado voters will be asked in November whether or not state laws should change on how youth sports are organized and who is allowed to have certain surgeries in the state.Protect Kids Colorado (PKC) is an organization that worked to get initiatives 109 and 110 on the ballot. Kevin Lundberg, a republican and former Colorado State Senator and State Representative, serves on the organization’s Board of Directors.According to it’s website, PKC “is a grassroots, We the People movement to educate, unify, and mobilize ... any concerned citizen to protect kids from becoming victims of a dangerous and false ideology.”Several LGBTQ+ advocates in Colorado oppose the initiatives, including One Colorado. On Instagram, the organization called the measures “dangerous” and “anti-trans.”Initiative 109 asks voters to make a new state law, requiring students compete on sports teams aligned with their biological sex, starting in kindergarten and lasting through higher education. There would be an exception for females to join male teams if there is no female team available. Schools and athletic associations would have to designate teams as male, female or coeducational. Initiative 110 seeks to prohibit biological sex-altering surgery on minors. Doctors would not be allowed to provide such procedures, and public insurance companies, including Medicaid reimbursement, would not be allowed to pay for them. Leaders with Inside Out Youth Services (IOYS), an LGBTQ+ advocacy group based in Colorado Springs, say these measures would harm young people.“The message that this would send to our young people is that they matter less than their peers,” said Ollie Glessner with IOYS. “It would send the message that they don’t exist, their identities don’t exist and aren’t worth protecting.”Erin Lee, Executive Director for PKC, says the measures secure protections that previous state legislative proposals have sought to secure but failed.“These are not right versus left issues, these are just right versus wrong issues. And so we wanted to give the people a way to still put these common sense safeguards in place for children,” Lee said.Similar proposals are being considered by congress within the SAVE Act.The election is November 3.Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.
