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.
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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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
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 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.”
“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.
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.”
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