Colorado committee finds strong scientific opposition to transgender death certificate designations, penalties 

Should people who ‘misgender’ someone on their death certificate face jail time and fines? 

A plan to do that received robust opposition from experts and one state legislator during a hearing before the Colorado House Health and Human Services committee Tuesday.  

At issue was HB25-1109, which would allow an individual with the right to control the disposition of a decedent’s remains to file a claim with a court to change the sex of a person on a death certificate in keeping with their gender identity.  

One of the more controversial provisions of the proposed change in law would allow the state to charge an “individual who knowingly and willfully violates these requirements” by recording the gender correctly with a “a class 2 misdemeanor.”  

A class 2 misdemeanor in Colorado carries a maximum sentence of 120 days in jail and a $750 fine.  

And conviction of a crime, even a misdemeanor, could allow the state to revoke the license of a doctor. As of now, funeral directors, who often fill in death certificates, are not subject to licensure in Colorado, but a bill in the state Senate could change that by 2027. That change would also make them subject to licensure revocation.  

About a half a dozen experts and individuals, along with one state House representative, spoke out strongly against the proposed bill. Nevertheless, the committee voted 8-5 to advance the proposal, paving the way for it to come before the entire House.

Committee member Rep. Brandi Bradley, a Republican, asked what would happen in the case of family members who argued over the gender identity designation.  

Bill sponsor Rep. Karen McCormick, a Democrat, said that was a question for coroners to determine, but Bradley said she’d already asked the coroner in her district and the answer wasn’t entirely satisfactory. 

“I’m interested in this because when I asked my coroner, she said that she’s not responsible for this, that this is going to lie in the hands of the funeral home directors,” said Bradley. “But maybe she was wrong.” 

Bradley also wondered what would happen when a dizzying array of gender identities caused confusion, like in the case of a so-called “non-binary” female, who could be considered either male or female.   

“I worry about these people not meaning to misgender, but getting brought up on charges for doing that because of the confusion,” added Bradley.  

Again, the answer from Rep. Kyle Brown, the bill’s co-sponsor, wasn’t really satisfactory because it was non-responsive to the question.  

“Certainly, obviously not. The point of this bill is really to be respectful and honor someone’s gender identity, and really to be respectful of the family…. You know, I don’t expect anybody to really be punished,” said Brown, a Democrat.  

But later when Bradley again asked about “putting people in jail” over misgendering the dead, Brown said that the legislature has considered “the appropriate level of [punishment for an] infraction, if you will, for any given problem.”  

He called it a “very high standard,” which seems to be an endorsement for putting people in jail, not honoring the dead.     

Experts brought up other challenges, including the skewing of epidemiological data that’s collected by death certificates where biological sex is scientifically relevant.  

“For example, if a female who identifies as a male dies of ovarian cancer, reporting her as male with few medical stats would obscure real biological trends with fraudulent sex data over time and across all medical contexts,” Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist, academic advisor for the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told the committee. “This would mess with how we understand and tackle health issues.” 

Dr. Travis Morrell, from the organization Do No Harm, who previously had called the bill’s punishment provisions “absolutely nuts,” agreed with Wright.  

“This bill goes against the basic evidence of science: faithful data reporting. One impact of this bill will be on public health research,” Morrell said.  

He noted that death certificate data is used for cancer staging research, while the CDC uses death certificate data in its national death index. 

But Morrell had a more scientific argument to make, calling the scheme an “unprecedented” distortion of reality.  

“Lastly, you want people to tell the truth,” Morrell told the committee about the fake gender designations. “I know this bill may get a few people to do what you want, make them comply with certain metaphysical ideas about humans that not everyone shares. But as much as you get that, you’re also getting people to lie against their own beliefs.”  

Morrell compared it to the old Soviet Union that used lies to cover-up disasters like the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear site, which everyone found out about quickly despite the lies. 

“If you teach people to go against their own minds or conscience, you will not be able to tell truth from a lie when it matters,” he said before adding, “It’s a bad trend for our state.”

Democrats control both the state House and Senate, as well as the governorship, giving the bill a solid chance at approval.

Bradley posted on X she was concerned the legislation would defy Donald Trump’s executive order recognizing only two genders and threatening to withhold federal funding from states and cities that oppose it.

https://x.com/bradleyforco/status/1894408661835157611