Parents sue over Colorado gender pronoun law they say worsened their daughter’s mental health problems

Colorado’s new Name Change Law “perpetuated” a 14-year-old girl’s painful attempt to transition her gender amid a battle with underlying mental health struggles, her parents allege in a lawsuit.

A Wednesday motion filed before the U.S. District Court for Colorado describes how a school counselor assisted the teen in socially transitioning to a male identity, using a different name and pronouns while at school. The applicable state law, signed by the governor in April, requires staff at public schools and charter schools to help socially transition children who claim to identify as transgender. 

Additionally, due to a separate school policy, the student’s parents could not be notified that their child was identifying as the opposite sex unless she gave permission.  

Meanwhile, her school counselor had secretly connected her to a transgender therapist, who reportedly recommended she undergo cross-sex hormonal injections and a double mastectomy. 

When the parents realized their daughter’s mental health struggles, they sought therapy for her, after which she “slowly came to realize that she does not have a transgender identity,” according to the suit. 

“She now believes that her prior identification as a boy was a subconscious attempt to mask her other mental-health struggles,” the document explains. “But she is now faced with the daunting tasks of informing her school that she no longer identifies as a boy, de-transitioning at school, and remaining resolute in the de-transition.” 

The motion goes on to explain that the school’s interference has harmed the student’s relationship with her parents, adding that schools under the state’s control “will continue to harm the Does unless the Court enjoins them from socially transitioning children at school without parental consent or, at the very least, notice.” 

Stories of “detransitioners,” or individuals who have walked away from a transgender lifestyle even after undergoing physical alterations, have gained widespread attention in recent years as more step forward to share their regrets. Some detransitioners have lamented the systems in place throughout their youth that permitted them to make such drastic changes before maturity. 

Chloe Cole, a detransitioner that brought legal action against Kaiser Permanente for medical malpractice, has taken to X to speak up about the experience of life after a transgender identity. 

“Detransitioning is a difficult process, it feels like I’m a medical mystery in many ways. Yet, it is so worth it. Living in objective reality rather than delusion is so freeing. Don’t be afraid to be yourself,” Cole wrote.