Clarifying claims that Colorado mandated use of a person's chosen name and pronouns

In late May 2025, a rumor spread online that Colorado lawmakers prohibited refusing to use a person's chosen name and pronouns in line with their gender identity.

The claims spread on X and Facebook. Some of these claims specified that the law bans "misgendering" and "deadnaming" individuals — in other words, referring to someone by a gender and/or name they no longer identify with.

However, these rumors appear to be spreading an outdated and exaggerated understanding of a legitimate law passed in Colorado on May 16, 2025, to clarify legal protections for transgender people. The bill, named the Kelly Loving Act after a transgender woman who was killed in an anti-LGBTQ+ mass shooting at a Colorado gay bar, underwent major revisions before it became law.

An older version of the bill sought to specifically define misgendering and deadnaming as discriminatory acts under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace, housing and in places of public accommodation such as parks, businesses and libraries. However, both terms were taken out of the legislation. Instead, the law as it stands — as of this writing — states that refusing to use a person's chosen name or respect how a person chooses to be addressed can be used as evidence in a complaint under the state's anti-discrimination act.

Here's what that means.

Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act

Before the Kelly Loving Act became law, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act already prohibited discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" and "gender expression" due to a law passed in 2021.

That bill defined gender expression as "an individual's way of reflecting and expressing the individual's gender to the outside world, typically demonstrated through appearance, dress, and behavior." It also defined gender identity as "an individual's innate sense of the individual's own gender, which may or may not correspond with the individual's sex assigned at birth."

The Kelly Loving Act sought to "further clarify that not utilizing an individual's chosen name is and can be used as evidence of discrimination in a gender expression discrimination case," said state Democratic Rep. Rebekah Stewart, a sponsor of the bill. It also added more details to what "gender expression" means under the law, such as "how a person chooses to be addressed."

Some claims said that Colorado made it a "crime" to misgender or deadname someone. That is simply not true, as penalties for violating the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act are civil, not criminal — any person who violates the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act can be fined $5,000 per plaintiff and/or other monetary damages, as of a 2025 amendment to the law.

It is also worth noting that filing a complaint under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act does not automatically mean an employer or accused party may be fined. For example, with employment cases, there must be "clear and convincing evidence that the defendant engaged in a discriminatory or unfair employment practice with malice or reckless indifference to the rights of the plaintiff," according to Page 39 of a 2024 version of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which Angela Titus, senior publications editor at the Colorado General Assembly, provided to Snopes via email on June 5, 2025, alongside a disclaimer that the state's Office of Legislative Legal Services was, at the time of the email, still updating the statutes to reflect legislation passed in 2025. 

Different versions of the Kelly Loving Act

Previous versions of the Kelly Loving Act specified inclusion of deadnaming and misgendering as acts of discrimination under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

For example, see the bill as introduced, which on Page 9 defined deadnaming as "purposefully, and with the intent to disregard the individual's gender identity or gender expression, refer[ring] to an individual by their birth name rather than their chosen name." Similarly, misgendering was defined on the same page as "purposefully, and with the intent to disregard the individual's gender identity or gender expression, refer[ring] to an individual using an honorific or pronoun that conflicts with the individual's gender identity or gender expression."

The bill as introduced also said on Page 2 that it defined "deadnaming and misgendering as discriminatory acts in the 'Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act', and prohibit[ed] these discriminatory acts in places of public accommodation."

In contrast, the bill as signed by the governor into law — available on the bill page — made no explicit mention of deadnaming or misgendering. Instead, it simply adds "chosen name" and other details to the definition of "gender expression," which, again, is already protected under the anti-discrimination act. See the relevant part of the bill, which is on Page 5, below, with the capitalized parts representing what the bill adds to the preexisting law:

(3.5) "CHOSEN NAME" MEANS A NAME THAT AN INDIVIDUAL REQUESTS TO BE KNOWN AS IN CONNECTION TO THE INDIVIDUAL'S DISABILITY, RACE, CREED, COLOR, RELIGION, SEX, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, GENDER EXPRESSION, MARITAL STATUS, FAMILIAL STATUS, NATIONAL ORIGIN, OR ANCESTRY, SO LONG AS THE NAME DOES NOT CONTAIN OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE AND THE INDIVIDUAL IS NOT REQUESTING THE NAME FOR FRIVOLOUS PURPOSES. 

(9) "Gender expression" means an individual's way of reflecting and expressing the individual's gender to the outside world, typically demonstrated through appearance, dress, and behavior, CHOSEN NAME, AND HOW THE INDIVIDUAL CHOOSES TO BE ADDRESSED.

It is worth noting that repeated misgendering and deadnaming have already been used as evidence in successful anti-discrimination federal court cases. See, for example, a landmark 2015 case known as Lusardi v. Department of the Army, which found that the Army discriminated against a transgender woman, Tamara Lusardi, on the basis of sex in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One of the pieces of evidence used in the case was the repeated use of her birth name and male pronouns.

Thus, the Colorado bill does not outright prohibit people from using a name or pronoun at odds with a person's gender expression — it simply strengthens preexisting anti-discrimination law in the state.

In practice, this means that choosing not to use a person's chosen name or pronouns can be used as evidence of harassment in an anti-discrimination case involving employment, housing or places of public accommodation. It does not mean that the act of misgendering or deadnaming someone is in itself illegal.