Transgender Legislator Says She Had to Take Her Name Off Gay Marriage Bill to Get Republican Support

Coloradans voted overwhelmingly for Amendment J this election, removing the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But the measure almost didn't make it out of the Colorado Legislature onto the ballot, one sponsor claims.

State legislators referred Amendment J to the ballot in May. Because it was a constitutional amendment, the proposal needed approval from two-thirds of the lawmakers in both chambers to make it through. While Democrats had a supermajority in the House, they needed at least one Republican in the Senate to vote in favor of the measure.

Six GOP senators ended up voting "yes" — but only after one of the lead legislators behind the effort, Representative Brianna Titone, stepped down as a prime sponsor of the bill.

Titone, Colorado's first transgender legislator, says a lobbyist told her that the Senate Republicans would not agree to support the bill while her name was attached to it. Though Titone had worked on the measure since early 2021, the version that was submitted to the Senate on April 26 did not list her as a sponsor.

"There was a lot of concern that the Republicans would have blowback from the party for supporting something brought by me because I am trans," Titone recalls. "It's humiliating and demoralizing to have to have my name taken off because of my identity, which is nothing I can change about myself."

Titone's name was added to the bill on April 29, immediately after it cleared the Senate vote and before it was introduced to the House for consideration.

Only two out of the nineteen House Republicans voted "yes" on the measure with Titone listed as a prime sponsor, Representatives Matt Soper and Rick Taggart. That's compared to six out of twelve Republicans who voted "yes" in the Senate, when Titone's name was not attached to the bill.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen denies that the Senate GOP requested that Titone's name be taken off the bill to gain Republican support.

"That’s news to me," he says of Titone leaving the bill to secure Republican votes. When asked if he would have voted in favor of the measure if Titone had been listed as a prime sponsor, Lundeen says, "Yes, the bill is the bill."

But Democratic Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis, the original Senate sponsor of the bill, backs up Titone's account of what happened.

"Brianna was not listed originally because she is transgender. I can definitely confirm that," Jaquez Lewis says. "I'm extremely hopeful for better communication around who is going to be sponsors of bills going forward with the new Senate leadership."

The other House sponsor, Democratic Representative Alex Valdez, says "nothing about Titone being removed was discussed during my involvement," but adds that he is "not sure exactly what transpired on the Senate side." The final Senate sponsor, Democratic Senator Joann Ginal, did not respond to inquiries from Westword.

Titone says the lobbyist who relayed the GOP's concerns to her worked with the LGBTQ advocacy group One Colorado. A spokesperson for One Colorado initially said the group was looking into Titone's claim but did not respond to multiple follow-up requests from Westword.

According to Titone, this was the first time she was explicitly told that her transgender identity was the reason colleagues wouldn't support her bill — but it's not the first time she's suspected it.

On multiple occasions in recent years, Republican lawmakers agreed to co-sponsor legislation with her and then backed out without explanation, Titone says. More frequently, GOP colleagues decline to work with her on bills even though they later vote in support of them, she adds.

"They won't say any particular reason. They're very good about being vague about it," Titone says. "I'm just kind of this toxic person that they don't want to partner up with because if they do that, it might bring legitimacy to trans people, and they could never want to do that."

While Titone has served in the House since 2019, she says these situations have come up "a lot more" in the past year, adding that it seems as though legislators on the other side of the aisle "were going out of their way to have less interaction with me." She suspects it's due to the increasing anti-trans rhetoric coming from the Colorado Republican Party.

In the last year and a half, the Colorado GOP has sent emails attacking the LGBTQ community and declaring that "God Hates Pride"; urged parents to pull their children out of public schools because the schools "turn more kids trans"; and publicly reprimanded four local Republican politicians for defending a transgender Montana lawmaker who was banned from the Montana House floor.

Titone has faced similar anti-trans behavior on the House floor, where Republican representatives have repeatedly misgendered her during legislative work. During a floor debate on the Equal Rights Amendment, Representative Scott Bottoms said that trans people were lying to themselves.

"I will never, ever, ever in my whole life call him 'she,'" Bottoms said of Titone during a town hall last year. At the same meeting, Republican Representative Brandi Bradley flaunted her work co-sponsoring bills with Titone as evidence that Bradley is not "transphobic," "homophobic" or, inexplicably, "racist."

"The Republican Party still has a lot of animosity against the trans community," Titone says. "That's the litmus test now for candidates and people running on the Republican ticket: 'Are you against trans people?' ... It's sad, because I just try to do the best work that I can and serve the people of my district and the people of Colorado."

In the most recent election, the Colorado GOP went after another transgender woman running for the state legislature, sending an email that misgendered Senate District 6 candidate Vivian Smotherman and included screenshots of social media posts calling her "mentally ill" and “a man pretending to be a woman.” Smotherman lost the election. The email also mentioned Titone by her dead name and claimed she won her seat because of "DEI."

Managing this vitriol has become an unfortunate part of her position, Titone says, forcing her to make difficult decisions — including taking her name off of the Amendment J bill.

"What choice did I have? I could have said, 'Screw you guys, I'm going to introduce it the way that I want,' but then I was going to risk them not voting for it," Titone adds. "That's just a really sad reality that we have to live right now because of the weaponization and polarization of trans people.

"I'm just trying to do my job here."