The Colorado General Assembly is threatening parents’ rights if they oppose “transitioning” their child to a new “identity.”

In cases where parents divorce or separate, Senate Bill 26-018 mandates that courts take into consideration whether or not a parent supports a child’s “identity as it relates to a protected class” when “determining parenting time and allocation of decision-making responsibility.” 

The bill references a Colorado law that includes “gender identity” and “gender expression” as protected classes. 

A parent in a custody dispute who refuses to embrace a child’s rejection of his or her sex would be penalized by the court, granting preference to the parent who favors “transitioning” their child. 

This is already happening in Colorado — and across the nation — as courts and child protective service agencies are removing sexually confused children from parents, but SB 26-018 codifies this abuse of parental rights into law. 

The bill, Legal Protections for the Dignity of a Minor, also suppresses court records of a minor’s name change, hiding the child’s original name and sex. 

In Colorado, 14-year-olds can initiate a legal name change without parental consent, and one parent can petition to change a child’s name and identity, without the other parent’s permission, as long as a judge decides this is in the “best interests” of the child. 

The parent pushing a child toward dangerous, experimental “transgender” medical procedures gains an advantage in custody cases over the parent who believes in biological reality. 

This is the second year in a row Colorado’s state legislators have tried to force parents to agree with a child’s sexual identity confusion — or lose out in custody battles. 

In 2025, as the Daily Citizen reported, the state passed House Bill 1312, Concerning Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals. 

Governor Jared Polis signed the bill into law, despite vehement opposition from thousands of Colorado citizens who signed petitions, attended rallies at the Capitol, testified against the measure, and made phone calls and sent emails to the governor and legislators.

That bill originally had a provision which would have allowed the government to remove children struggling with sexual identity confusion from their parent’s custody if they “misgendered” or “deadnamed” their child — meaning they simply affirmed their child’s true sexual identity and given name.

Because of the backlash, that provision was finally dropped, but the final version of the bill still contained horrible provisions. HB 1312, now the law, allows a student to choose a different name and sexual identity while at school — and requires staff to lie by using the student’s “chosen name” and recognize his or her new identity.  

HB 1312 also requires schools to allow “each student to choose from any of the options provided in the dress code policy.” So boys may wear girls clothing — and vice versa. The law is facing litigation from several parents’ rights groups. 

Colorado is one of many states where courts and child protective service agencies are already attacking parents who do not support their child’s sexual identity confusion. 

Erin Lee, founder and director of Protect Kids Colorado, recently stated in an interview:  “I’ve now helped over a dozen families in Colorado who have lost custody of their children, even in two parent loving households, for not affirming their child’s gender confusion.”

In a post on X, Lee pointed to families in Arizona, California, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, and Texas where one or both parents lost custody of their children so they could be medically damaged by transgender interventions. 

The parental rights activist, who works to protect children from transgender harms, spotlighted SB 26-018 in a separate post on X, saying: “Once again, Colorado is passing laws to TAKE CHILDREN AWAY FROM PARENTS who will not trans them. If you won’t tell your child they’re born in the wrong body & sterilize them, the state will take them.” (Her emphasis.) 

Lee encouraged Coloradans to fight back against this destructive legislation.

Daily Citizen is a news division of Focus on the Family that provides a faith-based perspective to counter the mainstream media’s anti-Christian bias.