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Utah lawmakers introduce transgender housing guidelines for state universities

Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius presents HB269 to the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee on Jan. 23, 2025. The bill bans transgender students from living in sex-designated dorm rooms that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth at state colleges and universities.
Martha Harris
/
KUER
Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius presents HB269 to the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee on Jan. 23, 2025. The bill bans transgender students from living in sex-designated dorm rooms that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth at state colleges and universities.

Three days into the 2025 Utah Legislative session, the debate about transgender access to private areas in public spaces is back in front of lawmakers.

The new push would bar transgender students from living in sex-designated dorm rooms that align with their gender identity at the state's public colleges and universities.

Instead, a transgender student must live in a single occupancy room inside a coed dorm or a “gender neutral” dormitory set up by the college or university. Otherwise, they must live in a room that matches their sex assigned at birth.

Rep. Stephanie Gricius, the Republican sponsor, called the bill common sense legislation during a Jan. 23 committee hearing. She said it would strengthen privacy by requiring students in sex-designated on-campus housing to be assigned to a unit that corresponds with their biological sex.

“It's not fair to these students to create that expectation of privacy and then assign them to live with someone who shares their gender identity but whose biology matches the opposite sex,” Gricius said.

A gender neutral dorm solves the problem of privacy concerns, she believes. Students would need to request that form of housing and it could be mixed in the same areas where they have male and female housing. The gender neutral arrangement, Gricius said, would allow “a trans woman [to live] with three biological females.”

Gricius emphasized the bill does not apply to off-campus housing or private colleges and universities.

People packed a legislative committee room on Jan. 23, 2025 to speak on a bill that would restrict what on-campus housing transgender people can live in while attending a state college or university.
Martha Harris
/
KUER
People packed a legislative committee room on Jan. 23, 2025 to speak on a bill that would restrict what on-campus housing transgender people can live in while attending a state college or university.

The legislation builds off last year’s law that prohibits transgender people from using the bathroom and locker room that correlates with their gender identity in state-owned or operated facilities, such as public schools and county recreation centers.

The recent social media frenzy about a Utah State University student who was assigned to an all women’s dorm suite with a transgender woman as their resident assistant garnered lots of attention. The student’s mother complained and the student was assigned a different room.

Gricius stated that the incident didn’t spur legislative action. But House Speaker Mike Schultz took to X, formerly Twitter, and promised to “make it clear” during the session that “female spaces are for biological females only.”

There are no exceptions to the dorm rule, Gricius said, aside from the gender neutral housing arrangement.

The legislation would also simultaneously remove some previous exemptions enshrined in law for transgender people to use certain state-owned bathrooms and locker rooms.

Gricius said there was some “sticky” language taken out, which dealt with the allowance of medical treatment or procedure documentation in order for a transgender person to use a sex-designated bathroom. The removal of that exemption prohibits transgender minors who attend Utah public schools and have been prescribed hormone therapy from occupying a bathroom that matches their gender identity.

The House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee listens to public comment on a bill that would restrict what on-campus housing transgender students can reside in.
Martha Harris
/
KUER
The House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee listens to public comment on a bill that would restrict what on-campus housing transgender students can reside in.

Under current law, transgender people are either required to use a unisex or single occupancy stall or have the gender marker on their birth certificate changed and undergo gender-affirming surgery to legally use the restroom that matches their gender identity.

However, a 2023 law prevents transgender minors from undergoing gender-affirming surgery or taking hormone therapy.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Schlutz said the bill is closing loopholes.

“Biological males shouldn't be in female bathrooms,” he said.

The committee room at the state capitol was filled with community members speaking for and against the bill. Outside of the room, those in opposition chanted “trans rights are human rights” – a theme that continued throughout the public comment period.

Zee Kilpack was one of the people opposed to the bill. They said it doesn’t guarantee housing for trans people and lawmakers should leave it to the institutions to solve.

“It can allow trans adults to be the adults they are, and we can figure out together how to come up with consensual and safe living agreements,” they said. “Make accommodations as necessary and move people around and let trans people get educated.”

Mac Sims, a supporter of the bill, said everybody has a right to express themselves but there are limits.

“I think fundamentally we have to realize that one person's right to express identity ends where the privacy of another person starts,” he told the committee.

Marina Lowe, policy director for Equality Utah, speaks against a bill that would prohibit transgender students from living in certain dorms on state colleges and university campuses.
Martha Harris
/
KUER
Marina Lowe, policy director for Equality Utah, speaks against a bill that would prohibit transgender students from living in certain dorms on state colleges and university campuses.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is critical of the bill for singling out transgender students. Legislative and Policy Council Ellie Menlove said it builds upon the exclusion trans people already face in Utah. Menlove is concerned about the implications this has for the privacy and safety of trans students.

“It's just adding another space where we're singling out trans Utahns and making them feel othered and discriminated against,” Menlove said.

Aaron Welcher, the ACLU of Utah’s director of communications, said the impact on trans people or the problems they face aren’t being considered and the bill blatantly favors other groups.

“Their privacy is being told that it doesn't matter,” Welcher said. “We should be looking at safety and security concerns knowing that there are physical and deadly attacks happening to transgender people across the country.”

At least 32 transgender and gender-expansive people were killed through violent means in 2023, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Menlove said the bill ultimately paints transgender people as a danger. Legislators market the bill as a way to protect women’s spaces, but it doesn’t acknowledge the violence cisgender women face.

“These bills don't do anything, including the dorm bill, to address the fact that cis women are subject to sexual harassment and sexual violence on college campuses and in public spaces and everywhere else,” Menlove said.

“That sort of rhetoric only pushes the idea that trans people are a threat to women here in the state, and that's just not factually based.”

The ACLU of Utah is not ruling out litigation if the bill passes and is signed into law by Gov. Spencer Cox.

HB269 now heads to the House for debate after it soared through a vote in the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee. All Republicans voted for it while the two Democrats on the committee objected.

Saige is a politics reporter and co-host of KUER's State Street politics podcast
Stevie Shaughnessey is a recent graduate of the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism, and a minor in documentary studies.
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