Family · Statewide · CO · August 21, 2026
Colorado-Funded Ads Told Kids 12+ They Can Get Therapy Without Parents
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The whole story turns on the state being held to its own written rules: Do No Harm did not allege, it filed under Colorado's open-records law and got 279 files, then quoted the program's own influencer talking points back at it — "no parent/guardian consent is required for youth 12+." The state wrote that sentence; the report simply produced it. Nothing here rests on a claim the agency can deny.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Do the same thing in the same order, and do it to yourself first. Before you write to a district, file a plain records request for the I Matter posters, toolkit items and any display-approval records, and read the board's own policy on outside materials in classrooms; quote their document, not your impression. Then check your own church or school youth-ministry practice — if you counsel other people's teens, make sure your written parental-involvement policy matches what actually happens, because that gap is the first thing anyone will look for.
Rule 11
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.”
The pressure to push the negative until it flips runs through the coverage of this report, not just against it: the alert itself concedes that I Matter does not prescribe medical transition and that the files document no confirmed referral case, while secondary write-ups have escalated the same 279 files into claims of a state "mutilation operation." One unsupported sentence spoken in a school-board meeting will be the only thing anyone remembers.
Counter-Rule 11 · Proportional Truth
Refuse to overclaim, even where it would help. One exaggeration hands the other side the only weapon that works permanently.
Say only what the files say, in the files' own words: the state paid for marketing that told 12-year-olds parental consent was not required, and Colorado law permits that. Refuse to add the transition claim unless you can hand someone the page. Write your two or three sentences out before the meeting, read them aloud, and strike every word you cannot source; when asked something you don't know, say you don't know and will find out.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The ground chosen is ground most parents have never stood on: an influencer contract aimed at ages 13–17, telehealth intake, and a consent rule built across three separate bills in 2019, 2021 and 2024. A parent who objects from conviction alone will be told, correctly, that the provider is following a statute — and the conversation ends there.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Spend an hour this month on the actual text of C.R.S. 12-245-203.5 and on the imattercolorado.org materials page, so you know that the statute has no affirmative duty to notify parents, only a duty to discuss and document, and that the state ships promotional posters free to anyone who orders them. Take the printed statute to the meeting. Ask for the marketing contract and the display approval by name, not for reassurance.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.