A Colorado mother who said her daughter had secretly socially transitioned at school helped lead a grassroots campaign that won major midterm victories, including measures restricting boys from playing in girls’ spaces in the traditionally Democratic state. Erin Lee, CEO and co-founder of Protect Kids Colorado, told Fox News Digital that the campaign’s success was deeply personal, coming more than five years after an experience involving her daughter transformed her from a self-described left-leaning Democrat to a prominent advocate for parents’ rights. “I co-founded Protect Kids Colorado because, five and a half years ago, my 12-year-old daughter secretly transitioned in her sixth grade classroom,” Lee said. EXCLUSIVE: RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT ACCUSED OF HIDING CHILDREN’S GENDER TRANSITIONS FROM PARENTS Erin Lee, CEO and co-founder of Protect Kids Colorado, told Fox News Digital that the success of the Protect Kids Colorado campaign was deeply personal and reached further. more than five years after an experience involving her daughter transformed her from a self-described, left-leaning Democrat to a prominent advocate for parental rights. (Chelsea @ Chelsea Smith Imagery) In 2023, Lee, her husband and another couple, who at the time had sixth-grade daughters attending Wellington Middle-High School (WMS), sued Poudre School District educators with the help of America First Policy Institute and Illuminate Legal, according to a copy of the lawsuit. Her group championed three ballot initiatives: Proposition 133, which increases penalties for child sex trafficking to life in prison without parole; Proposition 134, which would generally require students to compete on school sports teams corresponding to their biological sex; and Proposition 135, which would prohibit certain gender transition surgeries for minors. JACKSON THOMPSON: COLORADO ELECTED GOVERNMENT PHIL WEISER HIGHLIGHTS POSSIBLE CHANGES TO GIRLS SPORTS BALLOT MEASURE A voter prepares to cast his ballot on Election Day. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images) Proposition 133 passed with approximately 62% support, while the other two measures, Proposition 134, received approximately 52% and Proposition 135 also received 52%. In the same election, Coloradans re-elected Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper in a landslide with 60 percent of the vote. Lee said the results demonstrate opposition to certain transgender policies that extend beyond traditional ones. party lines. “Colorado broke ranks when they voted Democratic,” Lee said. “They also voted yes to these common sense child protection measures.” “I think that really speaks volumes to the fact that gender ideology is not a winning issue,” she added. Lee said the campaign relied on more than 3,300 petition circulators, more than 1,900 notaries and the support of more than 1,000 churches. He claimed his opponents spent more than $5 million, outspending his organization by more than 20 to 1. “This really was a people’s movement,” Lee said. PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS RESINCE BAN ON WOMAN WHO QUESTIONED CHILD’S GENDER IDENTITY ASSIGNMENT Erin Lee and her daughter. (Chelsea @ Chelsea Smith Imagery) She also described the personal toll of her family’s experience, alleging that school officials turned on her and her husband after they questioned their daughter’s gender identity change. “We’re going through a living nightmare,” Lee said. “Before 2021, I was your typical left-wing, voting, politically out-of-touch, virtue-signaling Democratic mom,” Lee said. “And then it happened to us personally, and we were attacked by the school district when my daughter came home and declared that she was suddenly a boy. We talked to the school and they vilified us. They sent out a well-child checkup to check on our children and assumed we were not fit parents because we didn’t instantly affirm it. They bullied us with the suicide myth: ‘Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter? You have to medicalize your child,’ and we are one of the few who managed success stories,” he said. Lee said one day her daughter overcame her gender confusion and asked her mother to become an advocate for others who might find themselves in a similar situation. “It took him almost a year to overcome this mentality,” Lee said. “It included suicidal ideation and distancing from people in our lives who didn’t agree with us, who didn’t affirm it. She asked us to speak out to help other kids, and that’s what drove me to share our story and have it go viral, and to really become this person that people could tell their own stories of what they were going through, and I learned how pervasive gender ideology is.” Her daughter’s request, according to Lee, helped launch the advocacy work that eventually became Protect Kids. Colorado State Campaign. WASHINGTON STATE VOTERS APPEAR TO APPROVE FOR THE FIRST BALLOT MEASURE SEPARATING BOYS AND GIRLS SPORTS Coloradans sign Protect Kids Colorado measures. (Erin Lee) Lee said she sees the election results as evidence of a broader cultural shift. “Gender ideology is a house of cards,” she said, arguing that Colorado’s vote could inspire similar efforts elsewhere. “The voters have spoken,” Lee said. “We’ve come a long way culturally for this to have happened.” A spokesperson for the Poudre School District told Fox News Digital in a statement that “the Poudre School District does not comment on individual students, in accordance with federal student privacy law.” The plaintiffs subsequently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review, and the Court denied that petition in October 2025. At no stage in this litigation was the district found liable.” CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP Advocates for Protect Kids Colorado. (Erin Lee) Fox News Digital reached out to LGBTQ advocacy organization One Colorado for comment, as well as Families Not Politics, an organization that opposes the measures. Rachel del Guidice is a cultural reporter for Fox News covering the intersection of politics, faith, family and American culture.
