ABOVE: The namesake of “Jude’s Law” at the Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment, photo via Twitter.
DENVER (AP) | Jude spent so many years fighting for the bill to allow transgender Coloradans to more easily change their names and gender designations on identity documents that, eventually, they named the thing after her.
That bill became a law in 2019 – “Jude’s Law’” – and went into effect Jan. 1.
Early Jan. 2, Jude, 13, rode with her mom and sister from Boulder County to the state health department building in Denver, where Jude became the first person in Colorado to benefit from the law that bears her name.
“Boom,” she said as she ripped her old birth certificate in half, before ripping it a few more times for good measure.
“I was living under a name that didn’t match who I was,” said Jude, whose family asked The Denver Post to publish only her first name because of safety concerns. “I wasn’t living as my true self, which caused a lot of self-hate. By changing this, it pretty much cuts off all association with that.”
Thanks to Jude’s Law, she has a new birth certificate and a sense of completeness.
The law brought several key changes. It let people obtain brand new birth certificates rather than amended ones. It undid the requirement that transgender Coloradans prove that they underwent reassignment surgery before being allowed to change their gender designation on identity documents. And it removed the long-standing requirement for public notice – in a newspaper, typically – of name changes.
These various changes, said Jude’s sister Madison, are immeasurably valuable to those who need them.
“This is a step toward her just being able to completely be who she is,” Madison, 19, said while beaming in her sister’s direction. “That’s beautiful. That’s all anybody really wants – to live exactly as we are, to be accepted and loved through all of it.”
On March 26, 2015, Jude was at home playing with her toys when she abruptly came out to Madison and her mom, Jenna. “I feel more like a girl than a boy,” she said. She was too young to know for sure what she was coming out as.
“I think we knew what lesbian and gay meant,” Jude added, “but we had to look up definitions. My mom read them off and she read the transgender definition and I was like, ‘That’s the one. That’s the one that relates to me.’ And I felt like finally they’d get to understand what I’d been going through.”
By April 2015, she had dropped her birth name. In June, the family moved from Colorado Springs to Boulder County, which they felt would be a more supportive community for Jude.
In February 2016, Jude, then 9 years old, testified for the first time at the state Capitol for the bill that would later be named for her. It swiftly died. She returned the next year and, on her 10th birthday, she spoke before a GOP-controlled state Senate committee that killed the bill. The bill died twice more in the Senate before Democrats, who already held the House and governor’s office, seized a Senate majority in November 2018. The flip breathed new life into the effort to loosen rules that Jude and many others have described as degrading.
Jude said it was tough to come to the Capitol every year to share her deeply personal story and then watch, over and over, as lawmakers voted against her interests. On one occasion, a male state senator misgendered her – intentionally, she and Jenna suspect – in an elevator right after she testified.
“Jude and I have this motto: You suit up and show up and you don’t give up,” Jenna said. “And we learned that when we were testifying. It was hard for me to sit there as a mom and listen to them say no to her, and to have to be graceful about it.
“As much as you don’t want to internalize it, it starts to feel that way, like `My kid isn’t good enough.’ But that’s just not the truth.”
Jude isn’t bitter, though. She said the years of struggle galvanized the transgender community, and allies, in Colorado.
Brianna Titone fought at Jude’s side throughout that struggle, testifying for the bills that ultimately failed. Now she’s a first-term state representative – the first transgender person in Colorado history to serve in that role – and her vote helped the bill to finally pass in 2019.
Said Titone, an Arvada Democrat, “To have Jude there and a lot of the other folks we’d seen year after year, testifying and fighting for their humanity – it was very emotional for me to be able to vote yes.”
Titone said she hopes Jude’s Law can bring peace to transgender and non-binary Coloradans. She knows well the pain that inaccurate identity documents can cause.
“It’s horrible. Everyone just can’t wait to have their name reflect the name they want,” she said. “I remember the first day that I got my new driver’s license with the right gender on it. It was a celebratory time for me. I had a party with my friends. That just kind of completes the person, to see that all the documents match up.”
Jude was joined at the health department Thursday by a transgender 9-year-old named Gavi, who, Gavi’s mom said, sees Jude as a “huge role model.” Jude’s father and sister spoke in similarly glowing terms, as did state Rep. Daneya Esgar, the Pueblo Democrat who ran the bill that became Jude’s Law.
Jude emphasized during an interview that she sees the law change as a win not for herself but for a community. She is, however, happy to remain at the center of the policy fight, wherever it heads next.
Coming off last year’s landmark victory at the Capitol, she already has her sights set on a bigger step: passing Jude’s Law at the federal level. She has spoken to U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Lafayette, about this, and has also met with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
“I’ve really learned the power of one person’s voice and how much it can affect other people, how much it can spark other people’s voices in the community,” Jude said. “Sometimes you just need one person to start a path and other people will join it.
“By sitting down in a chair and just telling my story, I can get a lot done.”
