Keeping Sports Sex-Specific, Initiative 109 Explained

~Anne Boswell

When you get that Blue Book that explains the questions on the ballot this year, there will be as many as 14 questions. One that's received some controversy in Colorado is #109, Male and Female Participation in Sports.

The woman who started the petition to get this question on the ballot for you to decide, Erin Lee, is a Wellington mother and the leader of Protect Kids Colorado, the group behind two 2026 ballot measures concerning transgender minors. She is a designated proponent of the school-sports initiative, which would establish male, female and coeducational sports categories and restrict participation based on biological sex. On a side note, Lee will be in Las Animas this weekend at the Bent County Lincoln Patriot Day Dinner. She will be the keynote speaker and will share the stage with Southeast Colorado Country Music Recording Artist Clare Dunn. Dunn will speak on concerns to agriculture in our state and area.

The question will ask you if you want to keep girls sports for girls only and not allow boys and keep boys sports for boys only.

How you will see the question, initiative 109, worded on your ballot:

Shall there be a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes creating new law restricting participation in all K-12 and collegiate school sports based on the participant’s sex as determined by certain aspects of their biological reproductive system, and, in connection therewith, requiring a school, institution of higher education, or athletic association to designate each school or intramural athletic team or sport as male, female, or coeducational; only allowing participants to compete on the team or sport of their designated sex or to compete on a coeducational team; creating an exception to allow a female to participate on a male-designated team or sport if there is no female team available; prohibiting a government entity, licensing or accrediting organization, or athletic association from entertaining a complaint, opening an investigation, or taking other adverse action against a school for maintaining separate teams or sports for females; and providing the commissioner of education with the authority to enforce the proposed initiative for K-12 school districts?