Colorado has been using taxpayer dollars to groom children into believing they are “transgender” and point them to mutilation surgeries, emphasizing that many do not need parental consent.
According to a new report from Do No Harm, Colorado spends millions of dollars on government programs, social media influencer campaigns, and medical school curriculums all aimed at convincing children they are a different gender, pointing them toward medicalization, and bullying the parents who do not want to destroy their children. Colorado even paid “queer” children ages 12-18 to participate in virtual meetings about “transition” resources, the report stated.
“Something unsettling is happening in Colorado. A publicly funded network of Colorado organizations is pushing resources that promote youth gender ideology on vulnerable children,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer at Do No Harm, said. “Our report is a case study examining how the transgender industrial complex has pushed further and further into the lives of children, reaching even as far as school-based health centers in the state.”
‘I Matter‘
Colorado’s “I Matter” program was set up to provide free mental health counseling to children, costing taxpayers about $11 million per year. The program includes a “confidentiality waiver” that strips parental consent around age 12, though the report states it is unclear how the program verifies parental consent under that age. Participation in “I Matter” also does not require insurance or citizenship.
“The program also notes that it will refer patients to healthcare providers for further treatment, allowing a child to confidentially begin the medical journey of sex-rejecting ‘transition’ without parental knowledge or consent,” the report states.
The program is not solely focused on “transitioning” children, but of the 12,896 total encounters with children from 2021-2024, 469 were considered “gender-affirming care,” three of which involved children ages five and younger. Forty-six of those sessions were for children between 6 and 9 years old, and 40 sessions included children with special needs.
“I Matter” also advertised its services to children using social media influencers specifically chosen because their audience was mostly children. The $5 million influencer campaign “stressed the confidential nature and lack of parental consent at I Matter,” the report states.
The primary target audience was children ages 12-18 (the cohort that does not require parental consent at all) and the secondary audience was parents with children ages 7-18. While influencer talking points for the children emphasized the lack of parental consent, the ones targeted at the parents are asking them to give their children over to government transition therapists.
“‘Having a child in therapy is not a sign of failure’ and ‘Sometimes youth need to talk to someone else (a professional, not a parent),'” the talking points state.
“I Matter” does not provide things like puberty blockers, hormones, or mutilation surgeries itself, but its free counseling sessions appear to be a gateway into convincing children to believe they are a different gender, and then pointing them to organizations that will medicalize their dysphoria.
Public School Clinics
According to the report, Colorado’s School-Based Health Center (SBHC) are clinics housed inside public schools that provide health care outside the capabilities of a standard school nurse’s office. From 2021-2022, there were 53 operating in the state, which offered “well-child exams, sick visits, health screenings, immunizations, mental-health counseling, reproductive health, and health education.”
Costing $21.5 million in operating costs, the clinics saw 34,427 patients over the course of 96,452 visits.
Services provided do not specifically mention “gender-affirming care,” but trainings and resources given to practitioners are heavily focused on “transitioning” children, according to the report.
The trainings included: “Introduction to Providing Gender-Affirming Care to Transgender & Gender Diverse Youth,” “Introduction to Providing LGBTQ+ Competent Care,” “Supporting Gender-Expansive Youth,” and “Working With Gender Diverse Youth For Advanced Practitioners.”
The report said that “The explicit note that [Supporting Gender-Expansive Youth] was ‘not an introductory course’ suggests an institutional trajectory of building GAC competency among school-based health providers.”
As The Federalist reported, schools are a a major part of the “transgender” medicalization pipeline.
University Of Colorado
Multiple initiatives from CU’s medical school train future doctors in how to transition children and strongarm parents into castrating and mutilating their children.
Children’s Hospital Colorado is an affiliate of CU’s school of medicine, which offers puberty blockers, hormones, and “mental health services” through its gender clinic called the “TRUE Center for Gender Diversity.”
In 2025, the TRUE Center gave puberty blockers to 257 children and cross-sex hormones to 549 adolescents.
The TRUE Center is also staffed by CU school of medicine faculty as opposed to Children’s Hospital Colorado, including for all billing and collection for clinical services.
CU’s “LGBTQ+ Health” curriculum appears to shed light as to why that might be: It “uncritically supports” the “transition” of children at essentially all stages of life, and it suggests billing workarounds to avoid calling attention to it.
“Colorado’s future physicians are taught to follow the child’s lead if he or she expresses any sign of gender incongruence, convince parents that irreversible gender ‘transition’ is the right choice for their child, and even assist in hiding aspects of a child’s gender ‘transition’ from his or her parents,” the report states.
Students are taught that children as young as 18 months old can “distinguish between gender identities,” and by six years old, “develop his or her own gender identity.”
The courses uses an example of a five-year-old boy and tracks him throughout the “transition” process.
Even slight evidence of gender incongruence from the boy allows the physician to start angling toward a “transition,” and they will start pressuring the parents to seek “therapy” and the possibility of “transition.”
“If parents are not supportive of ‘transitioning’ their child, students are instructed to confront them with the fallacious claim that their rejection will risk adverse mental-health outcomes, including suicide,” the report states. “Contrarily, affirming the child’s gender will allegedly increase self-esteem, social support, and general health and protect against depression, drug use, and suicidal ideation.”
Any attempt from the parent to talk about therapy to discourage the child from going down the path of “transition” is met with accusations of “conversation therapy.”
By 11 years old, the therapists and others have successfully convinced him he is the opposite gender, and he is considered “socially transitioned” and ready to start puberty blockers. By 15 years old, the child has been on puberty blockers for years, and wants to start cross-sex hormones, but wants to conceal that from his parents.
Students are taught how to conceal certain parts of a child’s health records from parents, including improperly billing insurance or not billing them at all. The Children’s Hospital of Colorado has “work arounds” and will “bill it differently,” according to the report.
“If the parents are unwilling to approve cross-sex hormones, students are essentially instructed to convince the parents to approve them by finding ‘commonalities (e.g., everyone wants to do what is best for Katerina),” the report states. “Students are also told that the child can decide ‘what and how much she wants the provider to share with her parents.’ The practical effect of this could be that parents end up approving an intervention without truly understanding what the ‘treatment’ entails.”
Students are told that by the age of 16, a child has a full enough understanding of the irreversible procedures to decide for themselves whether to be sterilized or mutilated. They are also told that there are “no age minimums for ‘chest surgeries,'” and that “‘bottom surgeries’ for minors are permissible if there is parental consent along with a letter from a physician and two therapists.”
As The Federalist reported, Colorado has numerous legal mechanisms for forcing gender transition on children, including through custody battles. Later this year, Coloradans will have the opportunity to vote on ballot initiatives to stop mutilation surgeries for children.
