What Does Proposition 134 Mean for Douglas County? School Sports by Sex, and What Changes at DCSD

Proposition 134 is one of three measures from Protect Kids Colorado on this ballot, and the one that reaches into every public school in Douglas County. This page sticks to what it does, what it changes here, and who is paying to pass or defeat it.

What changes in Douglas County schools

Every public school in the county, DCSD's neighborhood schools and its charters alike, currently follows CHSAA bylaws and a state anti-discrimination law that together let a student compete on the team matching the student's gender identity. Under 134, each team would have to be designated by sex, and a transgender girl could not play on a girls' team, nor a transgender boy on a boys' team; either could play on a coed team, and the measure creates a specific allowance for girls to join boys' teams where no girls' team exists.

The measure gives the commissioner of education, a state official, authority to enforce it in school districts. It does not create a new penalty for individual students, and CPR notes the enforcement details for schools that do not comply are not spelled out. It also shields schools from being investigated or punished by CHSAA, or any licensing body, for designating a team as female-only, which is the provision aimed at the current bylaws. Much of that fight has already played out in court. Eight Colorado schools and districts, none of them in Douglas County, sued CHSAA and the state in 2025; CHSAA settled with them in December 2025 and agreed not to penalize schools that keep separate teams for biological males and females, and the Blue Book counts at least seven Colorado schools and districts that have adopted such restrictions. In June 2026 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title IX permits states to maintain separate male and female sports based on biological sex. On August 27, 2026, a federal judge dismissed the rest of the districts' lawsuit, the part challenging the state anti-discrimination law, for lack of standing; Chalkbeat reports the state has not penalized any public school over such a policy.

It reaches colleges, universities and community colleges too, public and private, under the same designation rule.

What nobody can tell you

How many Douglas County students it would affect. CHSAA does not track transgender athletes, the district does not publish a count, and reporting by Colorado Newsline concluded the statewide number is small and unknown. Supporters say the number is beside the point; opponents say it is the point.

Who is behind each side

Protect Kids Colorado, the group behind 133, 134 and 135, had raised about $160,000 as of the September filings, per Colorado Politics. Families Not Politics, the committee opposing 134 and 135, had raised about $1.4 million, its largest contribution $200,000 from the One Colorado Education Fund. The Colorado Springs Gazette's editorial board has endorsed yes on all three; the Poudre school board in Fort Collins has formally opposed 134. The DCSD board has been through this argument once already. At its final meeting on November 11, 2025, before the four members elected the week before took office, the outgoing conservative majority put a policy restricting student athletes to teams matching their reproductive biology on the agenda for discussion. Public comment ran long and split both ways, the four outgoing members spoke for the policy, the remaining members opposed it, one member called the draft "pretty dang sloppy and embarrassing" for copying District 49's policy without removing that district's name, and there was no vote, per CPR. School board elections are held in odd years, so there is no DCSD board race on this ballot.

The arguments

For: supporters say biological differences make girls' sports unfair or unsafe when transgender girls compete, that a statewide rule is clearer than case-by-case CHSAA decisions, and that schools should not be exposed to penalties for keeping girls' teams for girls.

Against: opponents say the measure targets a handful of children for exclusion from school activities, overrides decisions that families, schools and CHSAA already make individually, and invites disputes over how a student's sex is to be verified. One Colorado and allied groups frame it as government reaching into family decisions.

The Douglas County frame

This is a county that argues about its schools, at the ballot box, every two years. Proposition 134 asks it to settle one of those arguments by statewide statute instead of at the district. Whatever the outcome, DCSD would implement it the same day as every other district in the state.

More: all 14 statewide measures for Douglas County, every race and measure on your ballot and the full November ballot guide. We do not tell you how to vote on measures; we tell you what they do here.