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Eight Colorado school districts just reached a settlement with the Colorado 
High School Activities Association to protect girl's sports.

The agreement solidifies the district's ability to enact sex-based policies 
for sports teams, locker rooms and overnight travel.


Colorado Schools Win Landmark Settlement Protecting Female Athletes
December 4,2025

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

In a move that reshapes how school athletics operate across the state, School 
District 49 and seven partner districts have secured a landmark settlement 
with the Colorado High School Activities Association. The agreement formally 
protects biological sex policies for sports, locker rooms and overnight 
travel, and it removes CHSAA from the center of Colorado's most charged debate 
over fairness, privacy and Title IX.

The December 4 settlement also allows the districts to continue full 
participation in sanctioned activities without penalty. District 49 described 
the outcome as a decisive step in restoring equal opportunity for girls and 
strengthening the role of local school boards in setting policy.

"CHSAA deserves credit for doing the right thing," Superintendent Peter Hilts 
said in a statement Thursday. "By reaching this agreement, they've recognized 
the need to protect fairness in competition and privacy in school facilities 
for our female athletes. We appreciate their willingness to engage in 
thoughtful dialogue and reach a resolution that puts students first."

The district said the settlement marks the first significant development in 
the broader case still moving through federal court and shows its continued 
commitment to student safety and equal opportunity.

How the settlement rewrites the rules

The settlement gives eight Colorado school districts enforceable protections, 
clarifying their authority to classify sports teams and intimate facilities 
according to biological sex. According to the agreement, CHSAA "will not 
sanction any team, competitor, or school... for its policies related to 
athletic participation by transgender student athletes," which includes team 
designations, competition decisions and facility use.

Districts may separate locker rooms, hotel rooms and overnight accommodations 
without triggering any discipline from the activities association.

The agreement also clarifies that if a school forfeits a contest involving a 
transgender athlete, the only result is a recorded loss. CHSAA cannot treat 
the decision as a sportsmanship violation or launch an investigation.

That clarity gives districts confidence to enforce their policies consistently 
without risking further penalties.

Because the agreement is a binding settlement, its terms remain in force 
regardless of changes in CHSAA leadership. Future boards cannot undo the 
obligations created by the contract. 

For the plaintiff districts, this provides long-term certainty that their 
policies can be implemented and maintained.

CHSAA steps back from enforcement

Some of the farthest-reaching terms involve how CHSAA must treat district 
policies and public statements in the future. The settlement bars the 
association from labeling any sex-based athletic policy as misconduct or 
unsportsmanlike behavior. 

CHSAA "will not consider the adoption, maintenance, or enforcement of any 
policies related to the participation of or competition against transgender 
student athletes to be 'gross misconduct'... or otherwise sanctionable," 
according to the agreement.

The settlement also prevents CHSAA from treating certain public statements as 
violations.

Districts, administrators and coaches cannot be punished for acknowledging 
biological differences that affect safety or competitive fairness. CHSAA may 
not treat comments about the performance advantages of biological males in 
girls sports, or concerns about contact sports involving mixed biological 
sexes, as breaches of sportsmanship or ethics standards.

The association further acknowledged that it has no bylaw addressing the use 
of locker rooms, restrooms or other intimate facilities by athletes of any sex 
or gender identity.

Immediate impact on students and schools

District 49 said the settlement allows schools to maintain separate teams for 
boys and girls, keep locker rooms and travel accommodations separated by 
biological sex and avoid CHSAA penalties for enforcing these policies.

The agreement also gives districts the ability to comply with Title IX and the 
Constitution without sacrificing student privacy.

Although the settlement applies directly only to the eight plaintiff 
districts, CHSAA's decision to resolve the dispute leaves other school boards 
with space to consider similar policies. The agreement signals a shift in how 
the association approaches enforcement. It also gives communities wrestling 
with the same questions room to reassess their own policies.

Hilts said he hopes the settlement gives school boards across Colorado the 
confidence to take similar steps. "I encourage school boards across the state 
to follow our lead and adopt similar policies that ensure equal opportunity 
and safety for all students."

Federal law, state mandates and a widening gap

With CHSAA no longer part of the case, the remaining dispute shifts to the 
Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Attorney General Phil Weiser. In its 
lawsuit, the district argues that Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act leaves 
schools no choice but to allow gender identity-based access to teams and 
intimate facilities, even if that conflicts with federal rules.

To protect equal opportunities for girls, federal law depends on sex-based 
classifications, the district said, particularly in sports where safety and 
competitive fairness carry real weight.

The district maintains that allowing biological males into girls competitions 
weakens those protections and can limit female athletes' access to 
recognition, scholarships and advancement.

Those questions now form the core of what the federal court will be asked to 
decide.

The road to the December 4 agreement

The conflict began in May when District 49 adopted Policy JBA, which 
classifies teams and facilities by biological sex. The next day, the district 
filed its federal lawsuit, arguing that state law forced schools into a direct 
conflict with federal requirements.

Earlier this fall, Hilts told Rocky Mountain Voice that the district filed the 
lawsuit to resolve what he called incoherent and conflicting state and 
athletic policies.

Over the following months, D49, Colorado Springs School District 11, Academy 
School District 20, Education ReEnvisioned BOCES, Monument Academy, James 
Irwin Charter Schools, Montezuma Cortez School District and The Classical 
Academy joined as plaintiffs.

The settlement on December 4 formally removes CHSAA as a defendant and 
positions the Civil Rights Commission and Attorney General's Office as the 
primary state actors whose policies will now be tested in court.

The pace of the case has accelerated in recent months as more districts moved 
to assert local authority over sports and facility policies.

A settlement that ends one chapter but not the conflict

District 49 described the settlement as real progress, even if it closes only 
one chapter of a much larger fight. The district plans to keep the case moving 
to confirm that school boards across Colorado can rely on sex-based athletic 
policies that protect student privacy and competitive balance.

Hilts called the settlement significant but added that "our work isn't done," 
and added, "We will continue litigation against the Colorado Civil Rights 
Commission and the Attorney General's Office to ensure every district in 
Colorado has the freedom to protect girls' sports, safeguard student privacy, 
and uphold the spirit of Title IX."


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"Trump Derangement Syndrome" Is a Real Mental Condition

All you need to know about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," or TDS.

"Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has 
been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the 
point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."

Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the 
Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into three distinct phases or 
stages:

"In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The 
president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, as if 140 characters were 
all it took to change the world."

"The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's 
vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting solely of 
hyperbole."

"As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from 
reality."

The Point here is simple: TDS is, in the eyes of its adherents, the knee-jerk 
opposition from liberals to anything and everything Trump does. If Trump 
announced he was donating every dollar he's ever made, TDS sufferers would 
suggest he was up to something nefarious, according to the logic of TDS. 
There's nothing - not. one. thing. - that Trump could do or say that would be 
received positively by TDSers.

The history of Trump Derangement Syndrome actually goes back to the early 
2000s - a time when the idea of Trump as president was a punch line for late-
night comics and nothing more.

Wikipedia traces its roots to "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - a term first 
coined by the late conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer back in 2003. 
The condition, as Krauthammer defined it, was "the acute onset of paranoia in 
otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay - 
the very existence of George W. Bush."