On June 13, 2025, Defending Education (DE) and its co-plaintiffs filed an amended motion for a preliminary injunction, an early court order to stop a law while a case is decided, in Defending Education et al. v. Sullivan et al.
For years, Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act has guaranteed everyone “full and equal” access to places of public accommodation, such as stores, restaurants, and doctors’ offices. In 2025, Colorado passed a modification of this law for a very different purpose: to regulate speech. HB 25-1312 changes the definition of “gender expression,” a protected category, and makes it illegal for anyone operating in a public accommodation to decline to use someone’s “chosen name” or other terms by which they “choos[e] to be addressed,” such as preferred pronouns.
States can ban acts of discrimination, like refusing service, but they cannot regulate or punish the speech of people who run public accommodations. The motion argues that the new “gender expression” and “chosen name” rules, along with Colorado’s existing ban on statements that make people feel “unwelcome,” violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments because they compel speech, target content and viewpoint, are overly broad, and are too vague.
These rules affect real people. DE members Lori Gimelshteyn and Erin Lee, and their organizations, Colorado Parent Advocacy Network and Protect Kids Colorado, host and attend events where they want to use biologically accurate names and pronouns because they believe sex is fixed at birth. Colorado physicians Dr. Travis Morrell and Dr. Valeri Leswing, members of Do No Harm, want to do the same with patients because they believe good medical care requires recognizing biological reality. Colorado law forbids all of them from doing so.
The plaintiffs ask the court to block enforcement of the challenged provisions because they are likely to win, will suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, and the balance of harms and the public interest favor them.
Read the motion below:
