A Colorado mother who says her daughter’s school socially transitioned her without the family’s knowledge helped lead a grassroots campaign that won three ballot measures in the traditionally Democratic state. The measures address child sex trafficking, school sports and certain medical procedures for minors.
Erin Lee, co-founder and executive director of Protect Kids Colorado, said the campaign grew out of her family’s experience more than five years ago. She said her daughter was 12 and in sixth grade when the change happened at school.
In 2023, Lee, her husband and another couple sued educators in the Poudre School District. The couples’ daughters were attending Wellington Middle-High School at the time. The lawsuit was later dismissed, and appeals to the Tenth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court did not change that outcome.
Protect Kids Colorado backed three proposals. Proposition 133 increases penalties for child sex trafficking, including a possible sentence of life in prison without parole. Proposition 134 generally requires students to compete on school sports teams based on their biological sex. Proposition 135 bars certain gender-transition surgeries for minors.
Voters approved Proposition 133 with about 62% support. Propositions 134 and 135 each passed with roughly 52% of the vote. In the same election, Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper won re-election with about 60%.
Lee said the results showed that voters could support Democrats while also backing the measures. In her view, the outcome suggests that opposition to some transgender-related policies crosses party lines.
She said the campaign involved more than 3,300 petition circulators, over 1,900 notaries and support from more than 1,000 churches. Lee also claimed opponents spent more than $5 million, outspending her group by more than 20 to 1.
Lee described the period after her family questioned the school’s handling of her daughter’s gender identity as deeply difficult. She said school officials treated her and her husband unfairly and questioned their fitness as parents.
Lee said her daughter eventually moved past the confusion and asked her mother to speak out for other families. The process, she said, took nearly a year and involved suicidal thoughts and strained relationships with people who disagreed with the family’s decision not to affirm the change.
Lee said sharing her family’s story led others to approach her with similar experiences. That advocacy eventually developed into Protect Kids Colorado’s statewide campaign.
She called the election results a sign of cultural change and said she hopes they encourage similar efforts elsewhere. “The voters have spoken,” she said.
A Poudre School District spokesperson said the district could not comment on an individual student because of federal privacy law. The spokesperson also said the claims in Lee v. Poudre School District R-1 were dismissed by a federal district court, with that dismissal upheld by the Tenth Circuit in April 2025. The Supreme Court declined to review the case in October 2025, and the district was not found liable at any stage, the spokesperson said.
One Colorado, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, and Families Not Politics, which opposed the measures, were contacted for comment.
