Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

OGDEN — As Utah moves to curb participation by transgender girls in high school sports, Encircle, a Provo-based group that advocates for the LGBTQ community, has announced plans to expand its footprint to Idaho.

Plans for an Encircle facility in Ogden, meantime — though delayed from the original timeline — edge ahead. The new Ogden center on Washington Boulevard serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youth and young adults was originally to have been completed last October.

Encircle reps on Wednesday are to formally unveil plans to build a facility in Rexburg, where the Brigham Young University-Idaho campus is located. The nonprofit organization already has centers in Provo, Salt Lake City and St. George, with nine more in varying states of development, including the Ogden and, now, Rexburg facilities.

Stephenie Larsen, chief executive officer of Encircle, noted the limited services for the LGBTQ community in Rexburg and the young population there stemming from the presence of the university.

“We know it’s a place with very few services and it’s very secluded,” she told the Standard-Examiner. With the student population, she went on, “there’s a great need for those services.”

Image supplied, City of Ogden

Encircle offers counseling to the LGBTQ community and their family members. Its facilities also serve as gathering places and safe spaces for LGBTQ teens and young adults. The group’s main mission is to “get these kids feeling loved and feeling perfect just the way they are,” Larsen said.

News of the expansion plans comes in the wake of the override last Friday by Utah lawmakers of Gov. Spencer Cox’s veto of House Bill 11. Per the action, the measure prohibiting transgender girls from participating in interscholastic high school sports will go in effect on July 1.

HB 11 has been decried as an affront by advocates and members of the LGBTQ community, and Larsen had strong words. Encircle is “focused on saving lives and HB 11 will do the opposite,” she said.

She noted that 86% of transgender youth have reported having suicidal thoughts and said HB 11 will have the effect of isolating an already vulnerable population.

“This bill targets kids who just want to feel the same sense of belonging as their cisgender peers,” Larsen said. “By depriving trans youth of participating in sports and feeling this sense of belonging, this bill will only further isolate these vulnerable kids. It’s unacceptable, and we need to come together as the great state we are to tell these youth that they are loved and that they belong.”

TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner

As for the Ogden plans, Larsen said construction of the Utah Transit Authority bus rapid transit system in the city has slowed plans for the Encircle facility in the city. Reps from the organization and local leaders held a formal groundbreaking ceremony for the Encircle facility about a year ago. It’s to be located north of 25th Street on the east side of Washington Boulevard, near where a BRT station is being built.

The BRT work has resulted in road construction along portions of Washington Boulevard and 25th Street, as well as Harrison Boulevard, hampering access to the planned Encircle location, a vacant parcel north of Farr’s Jewelry. Larsen expects work to commence in earnest soon, though, with completion of the facility here in late 2022.

The Ogden facility will cost around $1.5 million, with about $1 million of that raised. In all, Larsen said some $9 million has been raised for the nine facilities planned or in the works — in Ogden, Heber, Logan and Herriman in Utah; Boise and Rexburg in Idaho; Las Vegas, Nevada; and at two Arizona sites.