Colorado Democrat Voted for Pronoun Custody Bill Before House Bid

Manny Rutinel voted in support of the Kelly Loving Act as a Colorado state legislator, Fox News reported. The bill instructed courts to consider pronoun use when deciding child custody cases and required courts to deem deadnaming and misgendering as a form of coercive control.

The Kelly Loving Act states that a court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interest of the child.

It also allowed residents to change the sex designation on official documents such as birth certificates and state identification. The measure instructed education providers to include all reasons that a student might adopt a name different from their legal one and made it a discriminatory practice and unlawful to publish materials that misgender a person.

The bill passed the Colorado House of Representatives in a 40-24 vote.

It passed both chambers of the Colorado State Legislature and was signed into law in May 2025. Some controversial provisions, including those regarding misgendering, were stripped out weeks after Rutinel's vote. The Kelly Loving Act is named after Kelly Loving, a 40-year-old transgender woman who was one of five victims in the 2022 Club Q mass shooting in Colorado Springs.

Rutinel is the Democratic candidate for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District. He won the Democratic nomination the week before February 20, 2026, and will face incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans in the general election on November 3.

Evans won his seat in 2024 with 49.0% of the vote to 48.2% for Democratic incumbent Rep. Yadira Caraveo.