Editor’s note: This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.

Transgender Utahns would no longer be able to use the bathroom of their gender identity in Utah’s government-owned and operated buildings under a bill that passed out of the Utah Senate on Thursday. The legislation, which went through major back-and-forth changes this week, is expected to be approved by the House on Friday morning.

Under a third version of Morgan Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland’s HB257, “Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying and Women’s Opportunities,” made public just before noon Thursday, the bill changes the state’s legal definitions of “female” and “male” to categorize Utahns by the reproductive organs they were born with. It defines a “women’s bathroom” and “men’s bathroom” each as spaces only “designated for the exclusive use” of females and males, respectively.

The bill also bars trans people from using “changing rooms” — locker rooms, showers and dressing rooms — that align with their gender identity in government-owned and controlled facilities. Some trans adults would be allowed to enter gender-specific spaces in limited circumstances: if they have had both bottom surgery — a costly and invasive procedure — and amended their birth certificate, which is a legal impossibility for people born in some states.

The current iteration of the bill focuses criminal penalties on behavior of people who fit the legal definition of the opposite sex in those spaces, rather than on trans people merely using those spaces.

The second overhaul of the bill comes after the conclusion of two committee hearings on the bill — both of which had lengthy lines of Utahns who came to weigh in on the legislation, primarily speaking against it.

To read the full story, visit https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2024/01/25/ban-transgender-people-utahs/.

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