The new law will be effective on July 1 of this year.
On April 20, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed into law SB 18, titled “Legal Protections for Dignity of Minors”.
The law, which will be effective as of July 1, had the legislative abstract of, “Concerning legal protections for the dignity of a minor, and, in connection therewith, suppressing a court record associated with changing a minor's name.”
The text of the law sets out to do what was intended, while being quick and clear.
The signed copy of the bill is exactly 3 pages long with over a page of space being taken up by the signatures of legislative sponsors and the governor as well as Colorado’s “An Act” header which is present on all digital versions of signed/proposed bills.
The bill makes the following changes to state law:
Primarily, it makes court records involving a trans kid or youth’s name change a “suppressed court record”, which means it may only be accessed by the courts– or someone who has an affidavit granting permission.
The affidavit process to access a trans kids’ name change is set up to require the later consent of the trans person themselves.
In addition, it further enshrines the existing exemption for newspaper publishing of a name change if the reason for the change is due to being trans by applying that exemption to minors across-the-board.
This same exemption has existed since 2019 for trans adults in Colorado, following the passage of “Jude’s Law” in the 2019 legislative session.
“A petitioner need not give public notice of a name change as required by subsection (1) of this section if the petitioner is changing the petitioner’s name to conform with the petitioner’s gender identity.”
This means that, as of July 1, trans kids will have the same legally protected right to privacy as trans adults when it comes to their name changes within the state of Colorado.
While this law seems poised to primarily impact the protections of trans kids and youth in a positive manner, the law is not written to only protect trans kids.
Unlike Jude’s Law, the protection of the court records under the new law applies to all petitions for name changes as long as the petitioner is under 18 at the time of the request.
This new law also takes those protections a step further by defining the court records involved for a minor's name change as suppressed, which limits who can access them and the reasons why they can be accessed while also implementing a consent framework into future access of the name change records.
That’s a huge step forward in child rights for Colorado, and it’ll also positively impact children and youth who are seeking name changes for other reasons beyond being trans.