What Does Proposition 135 Mean for Douglas County? The Ban on Sex-Altering Surgery for Minors, and What It Would Actually Stop Here

Proposition 135 is the narrowest of the three Protect Kids Colorado measures in what it covers and the broadest in what it argues about. Here is the text, the exclusions, and the one fact that matters most for what it would change in Douglas County.

What it covers, and what it leaves alone

The measure is about surgery only. Puberty blockers, hormones and counseling for minors are not touched, and the text carves out surgeries for diagnosed disorders of sex development, for injuries, and circumcision. What it prohibits is surgery on a minor intended to alter sex characteristics, and it backs the prohibition with a funding ban: no Medicaid, no state dollars, and no insurance coverage for the procedure.

What it would change here

Less than either side's advertising suggests. Children's Hospital Colorado, whose South Campus is in Highlands Ranch, has stated that it has never performed these surgeries on patients under 18. The hospital's gender program, which offered other care, has been in litigation this year: it stopped puberty blockers and hormone treatment for minors in December 2025, families sued in January, the hospital restored the service to its list after a Colorado Supreme Court ruling in May, and on September 22 a judge ruled it had complied with that order, per the Longmont Leader. CPR reports that none of the state's three largest pediatric surgical providers performs them on minors, and that Colorado Medicaid already excludes them for minors.

So in Douglas County, Proposition 135 would prohibit a category of procedure that, by the available evidence, is not being performed on minors here now, and would bar coverage that Medicaid already does not provide. Its practical effect is to make the current practice a legal requirement and to reach any private provider or insurer that might do otherwise.

Who is behind each side

Protect Kids Colorado, whose board director Lori Gimelshteyn also founded the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, sponsors 133, 134 and 135 and had raised about $160,000 as of the September filings. Families Not Politics, the committee against 134 and 135, had raised about $1.4 million; One Colorado and Planned Parenthood are among the opponents. Colorado's Catholic bishops and the Gazette's editorial board support all three measures.

The arguments

For: supporters say minors are not mature enough to consent to irreversible surgery and that the law should say so plainly rather than rely on hospital policy. "We are preventing harm. We are preserving a child's future, their reproductive future," Gimelshteyn told CPR.

Against: opponents say the measure puts the state between families and their doctors on a procedure that is already not performed on minors in Colorado, and that its purpose is symbolic. "It's giving too much power [to the] government over decisions where trusted professionals and families should be making decisions," said Nadine Bridges of One Colorado.

The Douglas County frame

For most Douglas County voters this will be a vote about principle rather than practice, because the practice it bans is not occurring in the county's hospitals. The measure's supporters would say that is exactly why it is safe to pass; its opponents would say that is exactly why it is unnecessary. Both descriptions of the facts are the same.

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.