In 1992, Colorado's Amendment 2, which sought to legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation, passed with the slogan from the Christian right, “No Special Rights.” Nationally, an outcry slogan by opposers designated Colorado as the “Hate State.” By 1996, Amendment 2 made it to the United States Supreme Court, and it was struck down as unconstitutional. Fast forward to 2020 and the current administration recently is rolling back protections for transgender individuals seeking shelter in federally funded homeless shelters.
This is the legacy community centers like Inside Out Youth Services (IOYS) work against every day in Colorado. These are the systems and structures that inform and influence our housing shelters, our city government, our corrections, our leadership think-tanks convening to address risks youths are facing, our schools, our medical and mental health systems, our policing, and funding, and resource opportunities for nonprofits. The harm from this policy has lingered for decades.
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