Colorado is known for being a leader in protecting LGBTQ rights, but it wasn't always that way.
A new podcast from LOOKOUT Publications called "Hate State" looks at how Colorado became a testing ground for anti-LGBTQ policies starting in the 1990s.
Aspen Public Radio and Aspen Journalism reporter Eleanor Bennett spoke with podcast hosts and producers Xandra McMahon and Ann Marie Awad about how this history led to two measures targeting trans youth on the November ballot.
The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.
Eleanor Bennett: Before we get into the two measures targeting trans youth on this year's ballot, I wanted to start where your podcast starts, and that's with the history of the first anti-discrimination ordinances protecting LGBTQ rights in Colorado.
Xandra, can you start by walking us through that history and the pushback from the evangelical community?
Xandra McMahon: Absolutely. So there are two interesting things happening, kind of simultaneously in Colorado around the mid-20th century. But really, it starts to pick up steam, I would say, in the '70s because we do get this first anti-discrimination measure protecting gay people in Aspen.
Aspen decides to put Colorado's first law, essentially saying, you can't discriminate based on sexual orientation. Like, "We're going to codify that into law, we're gonna include it as a protected class." What you see is other cities in Colorado start to follow Aspen's lead, so we get another one in Boulder, and then eventually, like you know, in 10 or 15 more years, you get Denver thinking about this.
So it's kind of this chain effect, but at the same time, what's happening in Colorado Springs is this influx of evangelical Christian organizations moving to Colorado Springs and setting up headquarters there, to the point where by the '90s Colorado Springs is nicknamed the "Evangelical Vatican."
And obviously, these organizations have a very different view and perspective on gay people and the gay rights movement. They feel like it's a threat to their traditional family values and things like that. So they're not loving what's happening in Aspen and Boulder and Denver. And eventually, we actually do see, I think, in the late '80s, early '90s, a similar anti-discrimination law introduced in Colorado Springs. And that's really when the evangelical organizations start to ring alarm bells.
Bennett: So they decide to get Amendment 2 on the ballot to overturn these local ordinances, right? And the amendment essentially argues that LGBTQ people are asking for special rights, not just protection from discrimination.
Can you tell us more about how this led to Colorado becoming known as the "Hate State" and a testing ground for anti-LGBTQ legislation?
Ann Marie Awad: Yeah, so it lands on the ballot for the 1992 election, and there's a lot of feeling among people that we interviewed who were around in 1992 that that amendment was super confusing to most people who voted on it. I think what was also surprising was the fact that it passed. I think there was polling that had come out maybe a few weeks prior, showing that it was probably going to lose.
And you know, there is immediately a march on the Capitol the next day, and then the word starts to get out nationally that Colorado voted for this, and you start to hear things from Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg and all of these celebrities. A lot of them are talking about not going on vacation to Aspen anymore, and it goes deeper than that. I mean, you have other cities in the country who say, you know, "We're going to boycott products made in Colorado. We're not going to do business with the businesses based in Colorado."
Bennett: And the case ends up making it all the way to the Supreme Court, right?
Marie Awad: Yeah. So we spoke with Mary Celeste, who was part of this legal team that was quietly readying a lawsuit all along. And shortly after Amendment 2 passes, Mary and her group manage to get an injunction pretty quickly. And then it sort of winds its way up through the courts until it ends up at the Supreme Court. And what's really interesting about this piece of it is this is like one of the first times that the Supreme Court really ever rules on LGBTQ rights, let alone rules positively, rules in the favor of LGBTQ people.
Bennett: And so, that's a huge win for LGBTQ rights, not just here in Colorado but across the country.
Now, fast forward, and there's two ballot measures on our ballot this year ahead of the upcoming election targeting trans youth.
Will you tell us a little bit about those two ballot measures and how everything that you just talked about, that led up to this, helped put those measures on the ballot?
Marie Awad: Totally. The first one people will see on their ballot has to do with I believe the title is something like, "protecting girls' sports," and this one would basically create pretty strict gender requirements for participating in any kind of academic sport. Where it's vague is: how is anybody supposed to verify that? You know, leagues and schools are the ones who are responsible for figuring out enforcement. So that's the first one, and that mirrors measures that you're going to see in, I believe, four other states.
The second measure has a title that is something like, "protecting children from mutilating surgeries." The wording of the measure itself says, "any medical treatment that seeks to alter one's biological sex." There is a concern among a lot of people we interviewed for the podcast that that is vague on purpose. So that after, if one or both of these measures pass, conservatives then have the ability to basically go litigate the specifics in court, and it may go up to a Supreme Court that is much more sympathetic to conservative legal arguments these days.
Bennett: You end the podcast by introducing us to this amazing young person named Kay, and Kay is trans.
And can you just connect us back to a real story about a real person that you guys met, and how that connects to the measures on the ballot right now?
McMahon: Yeah, you don't hear from trans youth, who, you know, much of this debate is happening about their lives. And you don't hear them very often in the coverage about these, you know, political issues and ballot initiatives. Part of that, we acknowledge in the series, is because like they're minors, they're under 18, so you need a lot of parental permission and kind of sensitivity to go about that.
But we were really lucky enough to get to sit down and spend a lot of time with Kay, who's a 17-year-old who, you know, loves theater and loves science, and Kay is so much more than just being a point in this larger political fight. So we just really wanted to get to know Kay and have listeners get to know Kay, and also understand that these are conversations that are happening within family dynamics.
This is something that really, at the end of the day, is Kay's and Kay's family's decision about what care he has access to and his identity, and it's just really important for us to spend some time trying to illustrate that to the listener. These are challenging conversations that are happening in a lot of people's families right now, and at the end of the day, we should just try and have a little bit more compassion and space for those conversations.
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