On Monday, Protect Kids Colorado announced at a sparsely attended press conference that all its anti-transgender ballot initiatives failed to meet the signature requirements to appear on the 2024 ballot. The initiatives included a forced outing bill and a transgender sports ban, as well as previously failed measures such as banning gender-affirming care for trans youth. Colorado joins a series of states where anti-trans ballot initiatives have failed to meet the ballot signature requirements, indicating potential fatigue on the issue among conservative voters.

“We are striving to make Colorado a safer place to live for families and children. Despite falling short of the required signatures to make the 2024 ballot, we consider this ballot initiative effort a major success,” the group announced to a handful of people carrying signs. The only video of the press conference appeared on a small YouTube account titled “1A Media,” which briefly panned to show only two other people attending.

The group was responsible for two ballot initiatives approved for signature collection. The first, titled “Parental Notification of Gender Incongruence,” would have required public school employees to notify parents of any observed gender incongruence among students, effectively instituting a “forced outing” policy. The second, titled “Public Athletics........

© Truthout