Colorado moves to criminalize ‘misgendering’ dead people
Colorado Democrats have introduced legislation that would punish medical professionals who “misgender” someone on a death certificate with fines and jail time.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Karen McCormick, state Rep. Kyle Brown, and state Sen. Mike Weissman, would “require an individual who completes a certificate of death to record the decedent's sex to reflect the decedent's gender identity.” Medical examiners, coroners, and forensic pathologists who knowingly record a decedent's biological sex if their “gender identity” is different can be charged as a class 2 misdemeanor, which carries $750 in fines and up to 120 days in jail.
“Apparently modifying birth certificates to replace a person’s ‘sex’ with ‘gender identity’ wasn’t enough,” commented Colin Wright. “Now activists are worried about misgendering the DEAD, and 3 CO Dems have introduced a bill requiring death certificates to reflect a deceased person’s ‘gender identity.’”
Dr. Travis Morrell, a Colorado physician and senior fellow with the nonprofit group Do No Harm, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the new bill jeopardizes the integrity of medical data. When public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) aggregate and analyze medical information, it may be tainted with inaccuracies due to the proposed law.
“It’s dangerous and absolutely nuts to threaten doctors with a misdemeanor if they won’t forge a death certificate. But it’s what I’d expect in Colorado,” said Dr. Morrell. “Death certificates aren’t buried when you die,” he added. “They’re evidence in court. They’re data for medical and public health research. Death certificates help doctors predict cancer survival or the deadliness of infectious or environmental agents.
“The CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and scientists around the world use death certificate data.”
Colorado’s Counseling Censorship Law
Colorado has a record of forcing medical professionals to observe transgender orthodoxy. The state’s Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL) forbids licensed counselors from having any conversation with a minor that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
Critics have pointed out that the Counseling Censorship Law, as it is widely referred to, would not penalize counselors who steer children toward a different “gender identity” but rather those who help children embrace their biological sex. In effect, it forbids counselors from helping minors overcome gender dysphoria even if that is the express request of the patient or the patient’s parents. Counselors who treat children for dysphoria can lose their license and face fines of up to $5,000.
This summer, the US Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in Chiles v. Salazar, where a counselor is challenging Colorado’s Counseling Censorship Law.
