Colorado's Publicly Funded Gender Programs Constitute a State-Sponsored 'Grooming and Mutilation' Operation
Source: Breccan F. Thies. "CO Has Been Running A State-Funded Grooming Op For Years." August 11, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that Colorado is using taxpayer money to push children toward believing they're transgender and getting medical treatments, often without their parents knowing or agreeing. The article claims state programs, school clinics, and a university medical school are all working together to override parental authority and lead kids toward hormone treatments and surgeries.
Conclusion
Colorado has been running a state-funded operation that grooms children into transgender identities and steers them toward medical transition, deliberately circumventing parental rights and consent.
Premises
- Colorado's 'I Matter' program provides free counseling with a confidentiality waiver that removes parental consent around age 12, and has referred children—including some as young as five—to 'gender-affirming care.'
- The state spent $5 million on a social media influencer campaign primarily targeting children ages 12-18, emphasizing the lack of parental consent required to access these services.
- School-Based Health Centers, funded with $21.5 million, provide staff training heavily focused on 'gender-affirming care' and transgender-supportive practices, despite not officially listing such care as a service.
- University of Colorado's medical school curriculum teaches future doctors to affirm gender transition at nearly all stages of childhood, including teaching that toddlers as young as 18 months can distinguish gender identities.
- Medical students are taught methods to circumvent parental objections, including using fear of suicide as leverage, framing parental disagreement as 'conversion therapy,' and using insurance billing 'workarounds' to hide treatment from parents.
- Children's Hospital Colorado's TRUE Center administered puberty blockers to 257 children and cross-sex hormones to 549 adolescents in 2025, demonstrating the practical outcome of this systemic approach.
- Medical curricula assert that children as young as 16 are competent to consent to irreversible sterilizing or mutilating procedures, and that there are no age minimums for certain surgeries.
Assumptions
- Encouraging or affirming a child's stated gender identity constitutes 'grooming' rather than legitimate medical or psychological support.
- Gender-affirming care for minors is inherently harmful ('mutilation') rather than a recognized, evidence-based treatment for some adolescents with gender dysphoria.
- Parental consent should be an absolute requirement in all cases, regardless of the child's age, circumstances, or state law protections for minors' health decisions.
- The existence of confidential counseling and options bypassing parental notification is inherently sinister rather than a standard protection for vulnerable minors (e.g., in cases of abusive households).
- The medical/psychological consensus cited in Colorado's curricula is illegitimate or ideologically driven rather than reflective of genuine clinical guidelines from medical associations.
- Statistical prevalence of transition-related care (a small percentage of total encounters) still represents a systemic 'operation' rather than a minor component of broader youth mental health services.