They are coming for your children. A Democrat member of the Colorado House of Representatives defended excluding parental rights groups from discussions about a bill that would remove kids from parents’ custody for behaviors like “misgendering” and “deadnaming.” She did so by comparing parental rights groups to the Ku Klux Klan on Tuesday.
State Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Democrat, loudly condemned the idea of strategizing with what she referred to as hate groups. That would be any parent who disagreed with her.
Zokaie noted:
“A well-stakeholded bill does not need to be discussed with hate groups, and we don’t ask someone passing civil rights legislation to go ask the KKK their opinion.”
🚨 SHAMEFUL 🚨
Last night during closing statements on HB25-1312, Transgender Protections, two House Judiciary members referred to traditional parental rights groups as “hate groups” & compared them to the KKK. #coleg #copolitics pic.twitter.com/G0aP9zpJF2
— Rep. Jarvis Caldwell (@RepCaldwell) April 3, 2025
Using inflammatory labels is only meant to create a diversion from real debate on the merits of the bill. Shouldn’t parents have a say in the upbringing of their children? If a child is gender confused, shouldn’t all avenues of possible resolutions to this be available? Why are only treatments that could make such a situation permanent the only ones that could be discussed?
The bill would effectively require parents to endorse gender ideology in order to maintain custody of their own children in a dispute. Gender ideology is the mistaken belief that a person’s internal sense of gender overrides his or her biological sex. One cannot change one’s DNA.
Facing backlash over her characterization of parental rights groups, Zokaie doubled down. Zokaie used the excuse that others have called such groups hate groups. Apparently, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is the source of her knowledge about parental rights groups. And, yes, the SPLC does call parental rights groups who oppose the sexual grooming of children in schools as hate groups.
When will this insanity end?