On May 19, 2025, Defending Education (DE) filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado against various Colorado state officials on behalf of its members, Do No Harm, Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, and Protect Kids Colorado, to stop the state from abridging the fundamental free speech rights of its citizens after Gov. Jared Polis signed HB 25-1312 into law on May 16, 2025.
Here are the key points:
- Under the new law, failing to address people who identify as transgender with state-required language (for example, using biological pronouns or birth names instead) counts as discrimination punishable by law.
- The law forces people to use language that endorses the state’s views on hotly debated political questions about sex and gender.
The plaintiffs released the following statements.
Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President of Defending Education:
Colorado can’t seem to stop losing at the Supreme Court on constitutional challenges to its anti-discrimination laws. And yet, Governor Polis has nevertheless signed another patently unconstitutional iteration of its Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act—something that can only be described as an exercise of remarkable hubris. HB 25-1312 muzzles parents, doctors, and associations alike if they fail to hew to the government’s preferred gender orthodoxy.
Our members must now alter their speech to endorse the State’s view that someone can change their sex to match an internal sense of so-called gender identity, even though they believe the opposite. Under the law, they are now required to refer to individuals using preferred pronouns and “chosen name[s]” instead of biological pronouns and birth names.
Members like ours and those of other plaintiff organizations stand to be silenced and we won’t stand for it. Defending Education looks forward to vindicating our members’ constitutional rights in court.”
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm:
“Do No Harm is proud to challenging Colorado’s absurd so-called anti-discrimination act. Abridging American’s constitutional right to freedom of expression in the name of radical gender ideology is wrong. We expect the court to reaffirm that the Constitution trumps progressive dogma.”
Read the full complaint below:
