A parent who sued the Wellington School District over an LGBTQ middle-high school club is seeking to put a measure in front of voters in November that would require schools to notify parents when their child expresses “gender incongruence.”

Another ballot initiative would prohibit biological males from participating in girls’ sports at the K-12 level.

The group collecting petition signatures for the two measures is called “Protect Kids Colorado,” which is led by former state Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, and Erin Lee, a Fort Collins parent who earlier said her 12-year-old daughter was invited by an art teacher to an after-school art club that was really about gender and sexuality.

“Our education system is failing fast, breaking down trust between parents and education faculty by hiding vital information from parents and attempting to blur the lines between girls and boys, despite their obvious natural differences,” Protect Kids Colorado said in a news release on Thursday. 

“This grab for power and parental separation is unacceptable,” the group said, adding it aims to “fix these issues” with the two ballot initiatives. 

LGBTQ advocates have begun to organize against the measures, filing an issue committee back in January called “To Protect LGBTQ+ Coloradans.” The committee already raised more than $118,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. The group is largely funded by One Colorado and Out Boulder County.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear who’s financially backing  Protect Kids Colorado. Paying people to gather is signatures is expensive, but it’s often the only reliable way to get a measure on the ballot. No issue committee has been registered on behalf of the initiatives, although once more than 200 petitions have been printed, state campaign finance law requires an issue committee be registered within 10 days.

In a May 3 statement from One Colorado, Bruce Parker of Out Boulder County said, “If you hear that this is about protecting kids, you are being lied to.”

“These efforts target and single out an already vulnerable group of kids and, if successful, will place an additional administrative burden on our already-overworked teachers, coaches, and school administrators and expose them to frivolous and costly lawsuits,” Parker said. “We urge Coloradans not to sign these initiatives and to vote against them if they end up on the ballot in November.”

Petition signatures for both measures are due August 5.Organizrs need to submit a minimum of 124,238 valid signatures, and the standard practice is to collect 50% more than minimum to account for invalid signatures.

One of the backers of initiative #142, which would require schools to inform parents within 48 hours upon learning that a child is “experiencing gender incongruence,” is Lori Gimelshteyn, who posed as a nine-year old child on a crisis hotline last November. In her account, Gimelshteyn said she had a crisis specialist she “wants to be a boy” but didn’t want anyone to know —  and that the specialist offered to “help to explore your gender identity on your own terms before discussing with others.”

Gimelshteyn’s X posts about the call, which was picked up by Libs of TikTok that then asked its followers to email district officials, resulted in a flood of emails to the Cherry Creek School District last September.

Gimelshteyn is the founder of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, which allied with Turning Point USA to raise concerns about books in Cherry Creek Schools.  

Lee, the Wellington resident, earlier said her 12-year-old daughter, who was invited to an after-school art club, was told she was transgender and introduced to the concepts of medical transition, puberty blockers, polyamory, the importance of connecting with trusted adults online, lying to parents and suicide.

“She was encouraged not to tell parents, but she told us anyway,” Lee said during an interim legislative committee hearing last year. 

Also last year, Lee sued the Poudre School District, which includes Wellington Middle-High School, where her daughter was a student in 2021. The lawsuit, which was dismissed last December, claimed First and Fourteenth Amendment violations of their rights as parents and that the club leaders told students attending meetings of the Genders and Sexualities Alliance club to keep it a secret from their parents.

U.S. District Court Judge Nina Wang ruled the court did not have jurisdiction over the issue and that the plaintiffs did not suffer any harm, and dismissed the lawsuit. 

One of the backers of initiative #160 — which says only female students, based on their biological sex at birth, may participate in a sport or athletic event designated for girls — is Rich Guggenheim of Gays Against Groomers. The ballot measure would create three sporting categories — one for boys, another for girls and one for co-ed or mixed.  

Lee, Guggenheim and Gimelshteyn all testified in a Senate Education Committee hearing last March against House Bill 1039, which requires public and charter schools to use a student’s preferred name to reflect the student’s gender identity. Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law April 29.

The issue of parental rights versus the rights of LGBTQ+ children is already winding through the courts. 

At least six lawsuits have been filed since 2020 against school districts from California to Maryland. Last year, a California court overturned a school district’s policy requiring teachers to tell parents when their children wanted to use different pronouns. That lawsuit was filed by that state’s attorney general.

Meanwhile, a federal court in Maryland last year ruled schools did not have to tell parents if their children identify as transgender or gender nonconforming.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser addressed the lawsuits against schools, telling Colorado Politics, “I have consistently fought in the courts to protect LGBTQ+ youth who are vulnerable to bullying, mean-spirited attacks, and risks to their safety. Any policy that requires school officials to out kids against their will and offers no protections for their mental health and physical safety is irresponsible and dangerous. I will oppose any efforts that endanger the lives of nonbinary and transgender youth.”

Supporters of affirming transgender identity have pointed to an Education Week report in 2022, citing research that showed efforts to “out” LGBTQ+ students, especially transgender students, make those students “feel less safe at school, have higher rates of suicide ideation, and are disproportionately represented among unhoused youth, at least partly due to rejection at home. Conversely, affirming transgender students can improve their mental health and academic outcomes.”

Last year, Cedars-Sinai, a hospital in California, insisted in a blog that, “while puberty blockers have been scrutinized by some due to their use in caring for transgender children, these drugs have been in use since the 1980s and are overwhelmingly safe if used appropriately.”

Meanwhile, critics of medically transitioning minors have said America is an outlier and many European countries, after embracing “gender affirming care,” now emphasize psychological care over the transition of young people. In particular, the National Health Service in England said it will no longer prescribe “puberty blockers” — drugs that suppress sex hormones during puberty — to children and other young people seeking gender transitions, saying there is “not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness.”