Colorado Amends its Anti-Discrimination Law, Adding New Protections for Transgender Employees and Disabled Persons in Places of Public Accommodation

In the 2025 legislative session, Colorado lawmakers enacted two laws that amend the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) in distinct and material ways. The first, HB25-1312, clarifies CADA’s prohibition on gender expression discrimination in the workplace, while the second amendment, HB25-1239, expands the remedies available to individuals with disabilities who experience discrimination in places of public accommodation.

The Kelly Loving Act (HB25-1312)

On May 16, 2025, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed into law HB25-1312, also referred to as the Kelly Loving Act. Although CADA already prohibits discrimination based on an employee’s gender expression, the newly enacted law now makes clear that gender expression includes both an employee’s “Chosen Name” and “How the Individual Chooses to be Addressed.” 

The law defines “Chosen Name” as “a name that an individual requests to be known as in connection to the individual’s disability, race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, familial status, national origin, or ancestry,” but spells out specifically that the name cannot contain “offensive language,” and the individual cannot be “requesting the name for a frivolous purpose.” Yet, “offensive language” and “frivolous purpose” are undefined in the law, likely subjecting these terms to agency and/or judicial interpretation.¹

Likewise, the law does not define the phrase “How the Individual Chooses to be Addressed.” It is worth noting, however, that the text of the bill as originally introduced expressly made it unlawful to “misgender” someone, which was defined to include using a “pronoun that conflicts with the individual’s gender identity or gender expression.” This language was ultimately removed from the version of the bill that was enacted into law. While misgendering an employee could constitute evidence of gender expression discrimination, the final version of the Act does not make it a per se violation.

Colorado’s enactment of this law represents a stark contrast from actions taken at the federal level, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which in recent guidance entitled, Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace, has indicated that it will shift its enforcement priorities away from transgender rights.

Expanding Remedies for Public Accommodation Claims (HB25-1239)

The second CADA amendment, HB25-1239, which was signed into law on May 22, 2025, expands the remedies available to individuals with disabilities who experience discrimination in places of public accommodation. However, the version of the bill that was signed into law is more limited than the initial version of the proposed bill, which would have enacted much more expansive changes, including significantly increasing non-economic damage caps and lengthening the statute of limitations to bring a disability discrimination claim under CADA’s public accommodations provision. 

Under the enacted law, individuals with disabilities who experience discrimination in places of public accommodation may now seek attorney’s fees and costs, and either (a) actual monetary damages plus non-economic damages; or (b) a statutory fine of $5,000. Damages for non-economic losses are capped at $50,000.² Additionally, the law specifies that these damages are available to qualified individuals with a disability who are both accompanied by a service animal (or a trainer of a service animal) and whose rights under CADA have been affected. 

Employers, however, are entitled to a 50% reduction on the cap of non-economic damages if they correct the violation within 30 days of the complaint’s filing, and their violation was not knowing, intentional, or reckless. An employer that cannot correct the violation within 30 days may be allowed up to three additional 30-day periods to correct the violation and may be entitled to the reduction of the cap on non-economic damages, if that defendant shows a good-faith effort to correct the violation. If the employer has not fully corrected the violation within 120 days, it will not be entitled to the non-economic damages cap reduction.

What Does this Mean for Employers?

Given these amendments to CADA, employers may want to consider taking affirmative steps to ensure that their employees are aware of these changes to the law, including revising the training provided to employees and making appropriate changes to their employee handbooks. Employers that operate places of public accommodation, such as but not limited to retail and hospitality employers, may want to review their premises to ensure that they are accessible to the disabled, and also train employees how they may assist individuals with various types of common disabilities, such as but not limited to mobility challenges and hearing or sight impairments. 

*This article was also published in Wolters Kluwer.