Colorado’s long‑running brawl over transgender rights and parenting is back on the legislative calendar. On the very first day of the 2026 session, Democrats dropped Senate Bill 26‑018, a measure that would bring back custody‑related language stripped out of last year’s marquee transgender protections law. The bill would ask judges to consider whether parents “recognize” a child’s identity when deciding parenting time, a standard critics say could turn routine family disagreements into full‑blown courtroom warfare. The filing has already drawn sharp attention from advocacy groups, parents, and legal teams across the spectrum.
What SB26‑018 would change
Introduced Jan. 14, SB26‑018 would require courts to suppress records tied to name‑change petitions for minors and, when allocating parenting time, to “consider whether the parties recognize the child’s identity as it relates to a protected class,” according to the bill summary on the Colorado General Assembly. The proposal would still allow limited administrative access to those sealed records, but would prohibit publishing petitioners’ names online. For now, the bill sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee, waiting for its first hearing.
How this echoes last year's fight
The custody language is not new, and plenty of people at the Capitol remember how the last round went. SB26‑018 revives concepts that helped turn the 2025 debate over House Bill 25‑1312, known as the “Kelly Loving Act,” into one of the most explosive fights of the year. As reported by the Denver Gazette, the law ultimately focused on updating how marriage certificates and driver’s licenses reflect name and sex markers. Earlier drafts, however, went further and would have treated “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as discriminatory acts and allowed those issues to be weighed in custody decisions. Sponsors stripped those family‑law provisions before the bill reached the governor’s desk, after a Senate Judiciary hearing that drew sign‑ups from more than 700 would‑be witnesses, a turnout that made clear just how raw the issue had become statewide.
Polis, sponsors and the spin
Gov. Jared Polis publicly distanced himself from the earlier custody language, saying he was “not comfortable” with those sections and praising the legislative rewrites that removed the most controversial pieces, according to Colorado Politics. The sponsors of SB26‑018, Sens. Chris Kolker and Katie Wallace, and Reps. Lorena García and Meg Froelich are pitching the new bill as a more modest effort. They argue it is meant to protect minors’ privacy and tidy up procedural gaps, not to create criminal penalties or sweeping new custody rules.
Legal pushback is already underway
The 2025 law did not just stir up emotional testimony; it also triggered immediate legal fire. Multiple plaintiffs filed lawsuits arguing that parts of the statute improperly compel speech. CPR News reported that XX‑XY Athletics sued the state, claiming the law forces the company to use gendered language it rejects. In a separate case covered by the Colorado Springs Gazette, a local Christian bookstore argued that the expanded anti‑discrimination protections conflict with its religious beliefs.
Arguments on both sides
Supporters of these protections say Colorado is simply shoring up defenses against harassment and bringing clarity to existing anti‑discrimination law. They see modest custody‑related language as a way to keep a child’s identity from becoming collateral damage in bitter divorces. Critics counter that tying parenting time to how a parent talks about gender identity risks chilling speech in the home and overloading already stressed family courts. Legal observers have also emphasized the gap between the early drafts of the 2025 law and the version Polis signed, and both sides regularly cite that evolution as proof that the questions here are legally and politically thorny, as outlined by the ACLU of Colorado.
What to watch this session
For now, SB26‑018’s fate rests with the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will schedule hearings and take public testimony, a process that will determine whether the custody‑related language actually moves this session, according to the Colorado General Assembly. At the same time, federal lawsuits over the 2025 act are still pending, which means judges, not just lawmakers, will help decide where Colorado draws the line between anti‑discrimination protections, parental rights, and free‑speech claims in the months ahead.
