Colorado residents are fortunate to have 5 legal protections put in place by legislators in as many years:

PROTECTION #1:  EMPLOYMENT NONDISCRIMINATION
Employers are prohibited from making employment decisions-such as hiring, promotions, or firing-based on gender expression or transgender status.  

PROTECTION #2:  HOUSING & PUBLIC ACCOMODATIONS NONDISCRIMINATION
Realtors, rental agencies and hotels are likewise prohibited in offering housing options based on gender expression or transgender status.  

Any facility open to the general public isn't allowed to limit or deny services on the basis of gender expression.

This legislation also grants access to RESTROOMS and LOCKER ROOMS on the basis of gender identity and visible gender expression-not genital appearance (biologic-sex).  It's forbidden to demand an identity card or some other document to prove a person's gender.  Groping or strip-searches constitute criminal assault--a matter for the police, not the Civil Rights Division.

THE COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION
If any transgender feels they HAVE been discriminated against, they should contact the Colorado Civil Rights Division at 303-894-2997 (www.dora.state.co.us/civil-rights/).

The Civil Rights Division investigates the incident in an attempt to mediate a settlement.  Sometimes review by a neutral party and education are enough to resolve the matter.  If settlement isn't possible, the case is referred to the courts for Civil Suit.

Unfortunately there are no provisions in the law for punitive awards or refund of legal fees if the Suit is won, although the Civil Rights Division can impose fines & penalties.

RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION
There's bitter irony that religious institutions fight the hardest to be able to discriminate against people;  and to keep unwanted supplicants off their property.  As a result all non-discrimination acts contain wording to preserve religious bigotry.

Religious institutions can exclude anyone they want from buildings, schools, programs, and housing.  The situation becomes more cloudy when the religious institution is providing a service to the public-at-large (rather than to members-only), especially when they receive public money to perform the service:   For example shelters and soup kitchens for the homeless or abused.

PROTECTION #3:  HATE CRIMES
Hate Crime laws impose more severe penalties on the perpetrators.  The Colorado laws protect against bodily injury or property damage, including the threat to inflict bodily injury or damage.

Federal Hate Crime legislation is similar, prohibiting any attempt to "injure, intimidate or interfere with any person ... by force or threat of force."  Note that Federal Legislation refers to bodily injury, not property.

Verbal harassment (name-calling, taunting, teasing) is NOT considered a hate crime, nor is creating a hostile environment (eg preaching about the horrors of transsexuality, praying for god to smite transgender sinners).  Telling the congregation to go home, grab their pitch-forks and burn the local transsexual clinic probably would be.

PROTECTION #4:  SECOND-PARENT ADOPTIONS
Same-sex and unmarried couples are permitted to adopt children.  Legal adoption is absolutely necessary to function as a parent in modern society-even to such mundane matters as picking up children from school or granting the school nurse permission to give Tylenol.

Married couples are granted these rights automatically, and previously the law prohibited same-sex parents from becoming legal guardians.  Consult your attorney for further information.

PROTECTION #5:  DESIGNATED BENEFICIARIES
No one likes to think about medical catastrophes or death-until it actually happens.  Then the uninjured partner confronts a vast legal wall preventing any input in the decisions that are made.  Family members have the right of input as a matter of course-sometimes imposing decisions that are not in the best interest of the surviving partner.

The Designated Beneficiaries Act allows anyone to designate anyone as a legal agent in case of death or incapacitation.  The process involves filing a single document with the local county clerk's office.

See http://www.designatedbeneficiaries.org for more information and the necessary forms.

See http://therightsfive.com for general information about legal protections in Colorado.