On Friday, Gov. Jared Polis signed a new law that extends anti-discrimination protections to transgender Coloradans who are intentionally misgendered or deadnamed in settings like the workplace or in school.
Two days later, a website appeared that encouraged people to report “violations” of the new law, House Bill 1312. The site included an online form and a phone hotline, through which people can push 1 to report churches or similar places and push 2 to report caregivers.
But the website was not created by the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which investigates alleged discrimination. Nor was it launched by any other state agency, or by the advocates who supported HB-1312. Those supporters immediately suspected the website was fake.
They were right: The site was created by Scott Shamblin, the executive director of Colorado Right to Life and opponent of HB-1312 who testified against the bill during its journey through the legislature.
Shamblin’s name is not listed anywhere on the site, and identifying information is redacted from the site’s registration information, according to the nonprofit ICANN. But his name does appear in the metadata for an image on the website’s homepage.
Shamblin confirmed Wednesday that he created the site. He declined to answer additional questions over the phone. In a written statement, he said the website was an “obvious” fake and his attempt to “satirize” the bill’s intent.
“There is significant and intentional disinformation that is being pushed by the proponents of HB-1312 in regards to this satirical website and hotline,” he wrote. “The website was poorly made with little effort, it should be obvious that it’s fake.”
The website, which The Denver Post is not identifying because it is not legitimate, does not provide any indication it’s fake or that the submissions it gathers are going to an opponent of the law it ostensibly seeks to support.
“I’m not even sure what to say about the joke comment,” Katie O’Donnell, spokeswoman for the state agency that oversees the Civil Rights Division, said in an email.
Shamblin also tweeted about the site shortly after it was launched, accusing it of trying to “shut down churches for deadnaming.” To “deadname” is to refer to a trans person by the name they used before they transitioned.
In a text to The Post, he confirmed that he’d posted a tweet about the site — “again satirizing the situation” — before quickly deleting it.
Hailed as a “beacon of hope” for trans people amid the Trump administration’s anti-transgender policies, HB-1312 passed the legislature earlier this month. The law makes it easier for people to change names or gender information on government forms, and it also extends existing anti-discrimination laws to include intentionally misgendering or deadnaming a transgender person in certain settings.
But its passage has sparked conservative and anti-transgender opposition: Several groups have already filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the law, and opponents have taken to social media to repeatedly deadname a transgender Colorado lawmaker — who was not one of the bill’s sponsors — to signal their disapproval.
The bill’s proponents did not take Shamblin’s effort as a joke. Z Williams, whose law firm backed HB-1312 in the legislature, instead accused Shamblin of trying to “catfish” trans people into providing information about themselves.
“I don’t assume innocent intentions. I don’t assume he did this to be funny,” said Williams, who uses they/them pronouns. “I think there could be some real, malicious and dangerous implications behind this kind of website.”
Williams, who identified Shamblin’s name in the website’s metadata, said the site was posted as a serious resource on several Reddit pages after it was launched. Shamblin said the link has been “passed around as if it were serious by other people I am not affiliated with, but that is out of my control and I don’t know who they are.”
Some trans people actually filed reports on the website, Williams said, and they were concerned that information could be released publicly or otherwise misused.
In his statement, Shamblin wrote that most of the responses he’s received have either been from conservatives opposed to HB-1312 or from supporters of the bill insulting him for launching the website. He said he does not intend to reach out to those who submitted anything to the site.
As for the “theoretical” possibility that he would publish any of the responses, he said he would “scrub (users’) information prior to posting.”
O’Donnell, the state spokeswoman, encouraged people with actual discrimination complaints to use the Civil Rights Division’s website — ccrd.colorado.gov — to lodge them.
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