DENVER — After having authentic conversations with members of the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month, Denver7 | Your Voice heard one concern loud and clear: fear for what could come in the future.
- What is Denver7 | Your Voice? Read about the project here
Deb Dodd told Denver7 she is scared of "going backwards and rights being taken away."
"Because I never believed that I would be able to get legally married when I was a young woman coming up, an open gay woman, you know, I never dreamed it," Dodd said.
Denver7 took that concern to legal and policy experts, in addition to a community historian, to learn more about how Colorado's past can inform the present.
Colorado's past
Inside Glenda Russell's home, binders and files are stacked on top of the couch and kitchen table.
"I'm working on a lot of things," Russell said, laughing. "I like to say that I am flunking my retirement."
Russell is a trained psychologist, but also serves as a community historian since coming to the Boulder area in 1970.
"One of the first things I did — the first time I went to a public meeting about gay issues, which was a city council public hearing — I started taking notes and I never stopped," Russell recalled. "One time, my late wife said to me, 'Are you a community historian, or are you a hoarder?' And if she was still alive, she would say, 'I knew it, you're really a hoarder.'"
Russell now uses those notes as the basis for a blog she writes called "Tools for Troubled Times."
"The blog is based on some research that I started back in 1992, and that research was talking with and doing surveys of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the state of Colorado who had gone through the experience of Amendment 2, which was an anti-gay referendum that was on the ballot," Russell explained. "In effect, it said it's okay to discriminate against lesbian, gay and bisexual [people]. It was silent around trans issues in 1992."
Amendment 2 was drafted by religious fundamentalists who aimed to amend the state constitution, "making it illegal to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation," according to the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. It was on the statewide ballot in 1992 and passed with 53% of the vote. As a result, Colorado was deemed the "Hate State."
That's when Russell began researching how the legislation and campaign surrounding it impacted the people in her community.
"What it's like to hear yourself talked about in a way that you don't even recognize who you are because it doesn't fit who you are. It's about a stereotype. It's about a bunch of stereotypes. It's about misinformation and lies," Russell said. "It's not about you, and that builds a lot of uncertainty and a lot of concern about who are really my friends, and am I really safe here?"
Amendment 2 was struck down by the Colorado Supreme Court in 1994. That decision was challenged and taken to the US Supreme Court, which also struck down Amendment 2 in 1996 as a violation of the 14th Amendment and declared it unconstitutional.
"When the US Supreme Court declared Amendment 2 unconstitutional, that still is one of the happiest days of my life," Russell said, smiling. "That was really one of the most thrilling days I've ever had, and it was because the US Supreme Court acknowledged the humanity and the rights that LGBTQ people deserved, and that had never been done by the US Supreme Court."
Some of that history is preserved at the Denver Public Library in the form of artifacts and documentation, in addition to old newspaper headlines. Sarah Marino, a research services manager for the library's special collections and archives subdivision, pulled part of a collection related to Amendment 2 for Denver7.
"This is very interesting. It's kind of near and dear to my heart," Marino said while flipping through the box. "One step forward, one step back. Two steps forward, one step back. Amendment 2 was sort of conceived of in response to an expansion of protection for LGBTQ+ folks... It immediately galvanized people to push back against it and work to sort of protect their fellow Coloradans."
When asked how Marino would describe Colorado's history with LGBTQ+ rights, the word "complicated" came to mind. When asked how Marino would describe what it feels like to look back at the archives from that period, "inspirational" was her choice.
"Sometimes, it can be a little bit of a disheartening process, but I think having this history available and kind of at your fingertips lets you look back and see like, 'Oh, we've actually come really far,'" Marino explained. "[Amendment 2] was just completely devastating, but people didn't give up, and they kept fighting, and they were able to achieve something really important."
Now, Colorado has shaken the title of the "Hate State," and Marino believes it is considered a safe state for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Colorado's present
Is Colorado a safe state for members of the LGBTQ+ community? One Colorado, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, believes it is.
"I believe that in Colorado, we've established really strong protections for LGBTQ community members and our families, for immigrants, for people of color," said Jax Gonzalez, the political director of One Colorado. "We have really strong anti-discrimination laws."
Erika Unger, the legal director of Bread & Roses Legal Center, agrees.
"We can have fear and we can still be brave," Unger said. "We can't let people tell us that we don't deserve these things or that it's not our time."
Both Unger and Gonzalez explained some key moments of Colorado LGBTQ+ history from the last few decades.
"In Colorado, we have some pretty cutting-edge and important laws that are protecting our rights here," Gonzalez said. "We have put into law over 20 pieces of legislation in Colorado to create protections at the state level that ensure that LGBTQ+ people are treated fairly."
For instance, in 2007, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) was amended, banning discrimination in employment based on gender identity, including transgender status as a protected class. The following year, such protections were extended to other areas covered by CADA, like housing.
"CADA protects gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation — those are all specifically defined. They're not under any blanket term. We've sort of grown with how we've grown those terms over time," Unger explained. "Gender identity and sexuality have been included since 2008 — it's withstood challenges."
In 2006, Colorado voters approved Amendment 43, which defined marriage in the State Constitution as "between one man and one woman." In November 2024, Colorado voters decided to remove that language.
Colorado’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage became irrelevant when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 ruled in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage.
In the most recent legislative session, Colorado passed a bill named in honor of one of the victims in the Club Q mass shooting, Kelly Loving, which expanded legal protections for transgender Coloradans. The legislation was controversial, amended, and divided over parental rights, but Unger is proud it passed.
"When we started that, people said there's no way — we can't say trans right now. And there were hundreds of people that came to testify and showed that this is the place that we want Colorado to be, and the protections and the communities that we deserve," Unger said.
Colorado's future
What comes next for Colorado and the LGBTQ+ community? Only time will tell, Gonzalez and Unger said.
"Attacks on the LGBTQ community are part of a broader attack to try to divide us," Gonzalez said. "Anybody who tells you exactly what will happen doesn't actually know. What we do know is that we have protections in Colorado that are intended to stand up against changes at the federal level... I think that of all the states, Colorado is one that is going to defend those rights as long as possible."
"Those protections are solid, and we worked really hard to insulate them from challenges from the federal government. But you know, even if we're planning for worst-case scenarios, that's not the end," Unger said.
Russell, who has lived through the cycles of Colorado's history with the LGBTQ+ community, said there is a way to take solace in the uncertainty.
"Unless you have a crystal ball, you have uncertainty in your life every day, and most of us manage to deal with that all the time. So, you have better skills at that than you think you do," Russell said. "When the chips are down, we can often find it in ourselves to dig deeper and to be more creative and to be more caring, and I think that's what we should all be aspiring to right now, and we win when we do that."
Read more stories about Pride and the LGBTQ+ community here
In these Denver7 | Your Voice stories, we want to hear from you about what matters most in your community. We hope to hear what makes our communities special, the challenges facing them, and everything in between. Have an idea or want to share your thoughts? Fill out the contact form below.
