A number of bills were introduced, specifically targeting the transgender community.
Rep. Trevor Lee proposed a rollback of legal protections for transgender people. Ultimately, Rep. Lee was removed as the sponsor, then Rep. Tiara Auxier and eventually Rep. Mark Strong carried it forward. The bill replaced references to “gender” to “biological sex.” However, the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Utah said it would not impact existing protections for transgender people under the state’s nondiscrimination laws. It did not advance in the Senate.
A bill allowing landlords in off-campus housing to restrict single-sex housing to “biological sex” in an effort to keep transgender students out of shared spaces passed. The bill carved an exemption out of Utah’s Fair Housing laws.
Rep. Lee also proposed bills to rename Salt Lake City’s “Harvey Milk Boulevard,” after the assassinated LGBTQ rights leader, to “Charlie Kirk Boulevard,” after the assassinated conservative political influencer. The bill got a lot of attention, but never got a hearing in the legislature.
Rep. Rex Shipp’s bill that expands on Utah’s existing ban on minors from undergoing gender-affirmation hormone treatments passed the legislature with a 2027 deadline for some children to no longer receive those treatments.
Rep. Nicholeen Peck’s bill to block public employee insurance companies from covering transgender medical procedures failed to pass a committee. Her companion bill to require insurance companies that provide gender-affirmation care to cover “de-transition” procedures passed.
Drag performers stormed the Capitol Hill, to the alarm of legislators, to protest a bill they believed had targeted them by criminalizing some aspects of their performances. Rep. Colin Jack, who had run anti-drag bills in the past, insisted to FOX 13 News the bill was a simple code cleanup on lewdness statutes. That appeared to be the case and the bill passed the legislature with support from Democrats.
A bill to undo the legislature’s ban on non-approved flags, with the exception of schools, never got a hearing. But a bill by Rep. Matt MacPherson to allow those flags to be reinstated except at places like airports, courthouses and schools made it to the Senate and stalled.
Rep. Nicholeen Peck proposed a bill to not punish someone for using the wrong pronouns. It never got a hearing.
