Out trans Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone (D) received an email claiming to be from gay Republican Rich Guggenheim, a major force behind the state’s anti-trans ballot initiative that Titone had spoken out against. In the email, Guggenheim called Titone anti-trans slurs, deadnamed her, and misgendered her.
“What the email clearly shows is the animus toward the trans community behind these initiatives,” Titone told Westword. “I can passionately disagree with someone without using slurs, but the choice was made to go there. Again and again, we see animus and vitriol used against the trans community, which they have realized they can profit from. It’s truly telling what their motivations are from this email.”
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Colorado’s Proposition 134, the “Sex Requirement for School and College Sports Initiative,” would ban trans people from accessing school sports based on their gender, instead requiring children to participate in sports based on their “biological reproductive systems.”
The policy for how that would be enforced would be left up to schools’ governing bodies, but would likely require children to undergo genital examinations. Guggenheim was a main proponent of Initiative 70, which was later adapted into Initiative 109 and then became Proposition 134.
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Guggenheim has a rich history of anti-trans rhetoric. From 2023 to 2025, he served as the legislative director for Gays Against Groomers (GAG), the anti-trans organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center says “amplifies dehumanizing anti-trans rhetoric” and “perpetuates anti-LGBTQ+ stereotypes.” Guggenheim is still a member of the GAG Colorado Chapter.
Guggenheim opened the October 7 email to Titone, which Westword reviewed, with “Whats up tr**ny? OR do you prefer tr*on? I’ve got all kinds of slurs, and as long as you keep using the slur ‘cis’, I will keep using them on you, sir.” He went on to attack Titone for her opposition to Proposition 134 and claimed that, since he’s gay, her comments amounted to “misogyny and homophobia.”
Guggenheim did not deny writing the email when Westword reached out to him. Instead, he said he can “neither confirm nor deny the authenticity, existence, or content of any private correspondence that may have been shared or screenshotted by third parties. I do not discuss alleged private emails.”
However, Westword notes that Guggenheim responded from the same email address that was used to send the original email to Titone.
Guggenheim’s statement to Westword was nearly 1,000 words long and echoed many sentiments from the original email. Most notable is his mischaracterization of “cis” as a slur. This is common for anti-trans advocates, who don’t like having a term used to describe them. The word “cis” is simply Latin for “on the same side as,” as opposed to “trans,” which means “through” or “on the other side of.” Anti-trans advocates believe that no word should be used to describe the fact that their gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth.
“Those who police language around people who identify as transgender while freely deploying ‘cis’ as a slur demonstrate a clear double standard and hypocrisy,” Guggenheim wrote in his statement to Westword. “Free speech and descriptive accuracy apply equally, or they do not apply at all.”
Bizarrely, Guggenheim then sent the Westword photos of people who had received gender-affirming surgery, including six explicit pictures of genitals.
Before harassing state representatives and journalists, Guggenheim made a name for himself as one of the plaintiffs suing for the “right” to misgender and deadname trans people in court. In a filing related to hearings on Tiara’s Law, which made it easier for trans Coloradans to change their names, the defendants said lawmakers “have prescribed how critics of transgenderism must present their views during the public-testimony portion of committee hearings before the Colorado Legislature by prohibiting ‘misgendering’ or ‘deadnaming’ and otherwise requiring citizens to express fealty to transgender ideology under the guise of ‘civility’ or ‘decorum.’”
He also made headlines after posting on TikTok that he and his Republican friends, adorned in pro-Trump memorabilia, had been charged a $40 cover to enter a gay bar in 2024, claiming that he was experiencing homophobia for being a gay Republican. The bar said that Guggenheim and his friends tried to visit during a fundraiser for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s campaign and that everyone was being charged the cover.
Guggenheim has also flexed his own political ambitions. In February 2025, he filed to run to represent Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in the 2026 elections. However, he suspended his campaign days later, citing a county chair’s suggestion that he should dress differently if he were going to be a candidate as a key reason.
He then also ran for the state Senate seat for Colorado’s District 25. Although he won the Republican primary unopposed, he has since withdrawn his candidacy and will not appear on the ballot, with Republican Paul Kohlhoff taking the spot instead.
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