Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, just signed into law the “Kelly Loving Act,” legislation that classifies “misgendering” and “deadnaming” as acts of illegal discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations, such as restaurants, stores, etc. This means that, in these contexts, it is illegal for employees to use the birth name or biological pronouns of a person who identifies as transgender.
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The only exceptions included in the law are if the requested name includes “offensive language” or is being requested for “frivolous purposes,” both of which are incredibly vague. No such exemptions are included for preferred — or now, really mandated — pronouns.
This law is quite transparent about its objective: to use the weight of government force to favor one side of a social debate about the meaning and importance of sex and gender. By mandating that skeptics call transgender people by their preferred gender rather than their biological sex, politicians are legally requiring them to endorse one side of this heated debate. Frankly, supporters of this Colorado legislation were transparent about the fact that this was their intention.
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Garcia was quite open about her feelings, not just that one side of this debate is correct and one side contains “bullies,” but that lawmakers explicitly intended to “legislate” to stop people from expressing their viewpoint. There’s just one problem: That’s blatantly unconstitutional.
Hence, why a coalition of concerned groups is suing the state of Colorado and challenging this censorious legislation. They argue that this law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it explicitly engages in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and “compels them to use language endorsing the State’s views on highly contested and highly political matters of sex and gender.”
They are obviously correct.
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So, this law should, of course, be struck down by the courts. Yet there’s a broader takeaway here. Democrats and progressives need to realize that they will never win the culture war by forcing their viewpoint onto people. If the last several years prove anything, it’s that this approach is only going to engender more resistance and hostility. That doesn’t help anyone, not even the transgender people they claim to care about.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.