LGBTQ+ Rights

Disclaimer: This website provides general information only and should not be taken as legal advice for any specific situation. The legal landscape for LGBTQ+ people is also constantly evolving, so information on this website may become stale. If you have questions, need more information, or need help with a problem you are facing, please submit a Request for Legal Assistance on our website.

The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (“CADA”) prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation, housing, and employment based on protected characteristics, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

Discrimination can come in different forms. The law forbids both disparate treatment — i.e., where a covered entity treats someone differently based on or because of a person’s protected characteristic, and disparate impact — i.e., where a covered entity enforces or applies a rule, policy, or procedure that disproportionately adversely impacts people with a protected characteristic. It also forbids retaliation for complaining about discrimination.

• Places of public accommodation are places of business engaged in sales to the public, and places offering services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to the public.
  • For example: Places of public accommodation can include restaurants, hotels or motels, hospitals, retail stores, schools, public transportation, recreational facilities or parks, and libraries. Places principally used for religious purposes are not considered places of public accommodation.
• It is discriminatory for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a place of public accommodation because of someone’s protected characteristic.
• In addition, all public accommodations must allow individuals the use of gender-segregated facilities (like restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, and dormitories) that are consistent with their gender identity.

• Fair housing laws were enacted to ensure everyone has equal access to the housing of their choice. Fair housing laws apply to housing providers like landlords, but also real estate brokers, mortgage lenders, homeowner associations, and others.
• It is discriminatory for a person to refuse to show, sell, transfer, rent, or lease housing on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, or familial status.
• The law also prohibits redlining, steering, misrepresenting availability, advertising with a discriminatory preference or limitation, applying unequal terms or conditions of sale or rental, and other discriminatory conduct based on a protected characteristic.

• It is illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or other protected characteristics.
• Discrimination includes taking adverse actions against employees or applicants because of a protected characteristic, including failure or refusal to hire, discharge, layoff, demotion, harassment, adverse promotion or job assignment decisions, and actions harming a person’s opportunities or employment conditions.
• It is also generally illegal to make inquiries into a job applicant’s sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, during the interviewing or hiring process.
• Harassment based on sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation is unlawful discrimination.
  • Harassment means engaging in unwelcome physical or verbal conduct, or written, pictorial, or visual communication directed at an individual because of their protected characteristic.
  • Under Colorado law, the conduct or communication need not be severe or pervasive to constitute a discriminatory or an unfair employment practice. Instead, the harassment must be subjectively offensive to the individual and objectively offensive to members of the same protected class.

In addition to being protected under CADA from discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment, LGBTQ+ people are also constitutionally protected from discrimination at the hands of the government (e.g., a city or county, a public school, a police department). The constitution guarantees the equal protection of the laws, meaning the government can’t treat similarly situated people differently without sufficient justification. It is unconstitutional for laws and public entities to draw unfair distinctions based on sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation, among other protected characteristics.

In addition to the general protections from discrimination discussed above, the following specific legal protections are of special relevance to LGBTQ+ communities.

• Harassment: Both federal and state law protect students from harassment on the basis of sex, sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and gender expression. The contours and technicalities of these laws vary, but as a general matter, schools must take steps to prevent and address bullying, threats, name-calling, and other forms of harm perpetrated against LGBTQ+ students. Schools must also adopt written policies setting forth protections for students experiencing harassment or discrimination.
• Names and Pronouns: Deliberately misusing a student’s chosen name, form of address, or gender-related pronoun is prohibited harassment. In addition, public school employees, educators, and contractors in Colorado are expressly required to use students’ chosen name in school and during extracurricular activities. Schools must also implement written policies outlining how they will honor a student’s request to use a chosen name.
• Freedom of Expression: Public school students maintain their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression when they arrive at school. A school can only restrict a student’s expression when it causes significant disruption in the school environment. Students also have the right to dress and present themselves at school consistent with their gender identity. While schools may have generally applicable dress codes that serve an institutional purpose, they must enforce those rules in a manner that respects students’ gender identity and expression, rather than enforcing sex stereotypes.
  • GSAs and Other LGBTQ Student Groups: If a school (that receives federal funding) permits any noncurricular clubs, then it must allow students to form a GSA or other LGBTQ+ student group if they want to, and the school can’t treat it differently from other noncurricular clubs. Noncurricular clubs are groups whose purpose is not directly related to classes taught in the school.
  • Access to Prom: Schools can’t prevent students from bringing a date to prom because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. 
• Privacy: Schools have the duty to keep sensitive information about their students—including their LGBTQ+ status—private. Questions about how schools can respect minor students’ interests in privacy while engaging in appropriate communication with parents and guardians are being hotly contested in courts, legislatures, and on ballots. Please contact us if your school has outed you to anyone without your consent.

The Code of Colorado Regulations prevent private health insurance carriers from discriminating in health coverage based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. Carriers that provide health insurance plans in Colorado cannot:

• Impose higher rates or fees because of your sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status.
• Use your sexual orientation or HIV status as a pre-existing condition for the purpose of limiting or denying coverage
• Deny, exclude or limit coverage for medically necessary services, in accordance with generally accepted professional standards of care, based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
  • Example: If an insurer covers breast reduction surgery to lessen back pain, that insurer cannot deny coverage for breast reduction surgery for gender transition if the procedure is in accordance with generally accepted professional standards of care.

• Jude’s Law generally allows transgender and nonbinary Coloradans of any age to have accurate, reflective identification documents (IDs). This means that you can update your birth certificate, driver’s license, or Colorado state ID with the options male (M), female (F), or non-binary/gender-nonconforming (X).
• You are not required to obtain a court order for a legal name change in order to get a new birth certificate with a change in gender designation.
• The law only allows you to request the gender designation update once. Beyond the one time, a court order is required.

• As part of a 2024 legal settlement, the Colorado Department of Corrections was required to pay $2.1 million to 400 trans women plaintiffs whose rights were violated in men’s prisons. In addition to the settlement, a judge affirmed a Consent Decree that requires the department to implement comprehensive policy changes.
• This Decree includes providing gender affirming healthcare in line with generally accepted standards in the medical community for treating transgender women.
• The Decree states that transgender women diagnosed with gender dysphoria are qualified individuals with disabilities who shall be provided reasonable accommodations in compliance with federal and state law.
• The department must also implement two new housing units for trans women:
  1. Trans women can apply for placement in a women’s facility where they are placed in an “Integration Unit” intended to temporarily house transgender women as they transition into the women’s general population.
  2. Trans women can also be placed in a “Voluntary Transgender Unit” within the men’s facilities, if transwomen prefer to be housed together.
• The department must work with transgender health experts to implement this decree by the end of 2024, and the decree will remain in place until at least 2029.

IF YOU BELIEVE YOUR RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED: contact us at  https://www.aclu-co.org/en/resources/need-legal-help