Utah House passes transgender bathroom ban

Utah’s Republican-controlled House voted Friday to pass a sweeping proposal to keep transgender people out of restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity in taxpayer-funded buildings, sending the measure to the state’s majority GOP Senate for consideration just three days after the start of the session.

House Bill 257 aims to prohibit individuals from using gender-designated facilities that differ from their sex assigned at birth in government buildings, correctional facilities and domestic violence shelters unless they have undergone a transition-related surgery and legally amended the sex on their birth certificate.

The proposal would require new government buildings to include single-occupant restrooms and changing rooms while existing ones must be studied to assess “the feasibility of retrofitting or remodeling” facilities to improve privacy.

Utah House lawmakers voted 52-17 on Friday to pass the bill. Three Republicans joined all Democrats in voting against it.

The bill, if passed, would make Utah the third state to adopt explicit restrictions on transgender bathroom use in buildings other than schools. A Florida law passed last year prevents transgender people from using facilities consistent with their gender identity in all government-owned buildings, and a North Dakota law restricts bathroom use in correctional facilities.

At least seven states have laws in place that bar transgender people from using the restroom or locker room consistent with their gender identity in K-12 schools.

Utah Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland, the bill’s primary sponsor in the House, argued this week that the measure is necessary to increase privacy and protect women and children from “bad actors.”

“This bill doesn’t target anyone specifically,” Birkland said Friday. “It creates privacy at all times.”

Birkeland, who last session spearheaded a successful effort by the legislature to ban transgender women and girls from female school sports teams, said during a bill hearing on Wednesday that she was not able to provide a police report “or anything like that” to substantiate claims that transgender people were behaving inappropriately in public bathrooms.

One transgender teenager testifying before a state House panel on Wednesday pointed out to lawmakers that transgender people are statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted than cisgender people. A 2021 Williams Institute report found that trans people are four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crimes.

Other opponents of the bill have argued it could worsen stigma and violence against an already vulnerable population.

“We still have deep concerns that the proposed legislation will place transgender Utahns at risk in public bathrooms,” Equality Utah, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, wrote Friday in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

House Bill 257, if passed, would also amend state code with a rigid interpretation of sex, legally defining a female as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions in a way that could produce ova,” and a male as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is of the general type that functions to fertilize the ova of a female.”

Four states — Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and Tennessee — have similar laws on the books, which LGBTQ rights groups have argued broadly allow discrimination against transgender people.

In a statement following Friday’s vote, Utah Democratic Party Chair Diane Lewis called the passage of House Bill 257 “a shameful, discriminatory attack on a community that is already extremely marginalized and vulnerable.”

Democrats have, however, largely agreed with provisions in the bill seeking to codify Title IX protections for boys and girls high school sports in Utah code.