Utah is the first state in the nation to pass a transgender-related bathroom bill in 2024. The bill, called H.B. 257, was passed by the Utah House of Representatives on January 26th, 2024. The bill bars transgender people from using gender-specific bathrooms or locker rooms that do not match their gender assigned at birth unless they have undergone gender-related surgery and legally changed the gender on their birth certificate. The bill only applies to government-owned and tax-payer-funded buildings, such as universities, schools, prisons, city and county buildings, and temporary shelters for survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault, but does not apply to privately owned buildings. Several changes have been made to H.B. 257 since it was introduced. “The law has never prohibited people from using a bathroom despite what the sign says on the outside of the door,” said Sen. Daniel McCay, a supporter of the bill. “In that situation, that part of the law is not changing. What is changing is protecting more strictly, lewd voyeurism and those behaviors that are and should be protected in those spaces.”
The topic of LGBT+ rights is not limited to Utah alone; legislation throughout the United States singling out LGBT+ rights nearly tripled between 2022 and 2023. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), at least “510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the United States last year.” This is a new record. It’s not just the total number that has increased, but the magnitude of the bills. Several states, including Iowa, North Dakota, Indiana, North Carolina, and Alabama have introduced “forced outing” bills, which require teachers to alert parents when a student begins going by a different name or pronouns. Katie Clark, a teacher and the mother of a person in the transgender community says. “The bottom line is that if parents fear their child being LGBTQ, outing them puts that child in danger. If the teachers always told the parents, there would be a lot more homeless kids. There could be a lot of abuse that would take place in the household. There could be a lot of parents disowning kids because they’re not educated on what’s going on. So many things that endanger the child could happen, all because a teacher tattled on them. That’s asinine.”Several of the bills introduced in the United States would allow businesses to refuse to serve transgender people, while others would make it more difficult for transgender people to change their gender on their birth certificates. The solution that many of these bills offer is to make an exception for those individuals who have undergone the necessary surgeries to change their physical gender. Although this exception satisfies many who are not in the community, it is not a good solution for everyone. Clark shares the experience she and her child had while going through the transition process: “Doctors don’t want to prescribe hormones, especially if your child is under 18. A lot of doctors identify a lot of the depression, anxiety, and the things that a lot of transgender kids have, they have because they’re not getting support from the healthcare system. There’s this fine line where kids commit suicide because of the lack of support. I wasn’t willing to let my child get to that point.”
Healthcare for transgender individuals, and youth especially, is comparatively inaccessible to that of their cisgender peers. “The insurance companies won’t cover the surgery unless you’ve been on hormones. They say if you can’t pay for the hormones, you can’t have anything like the surgeries. If you’re not a family that has financial means, you’ll never be able to get hormones because they’re almost $600 a month. I was willing to pay that out of pocket because my child’s mental health is my top priority, but very few people have the financial capability to pay without the help of insurance,” says Clark.
Utah’s transgender bathroom bill is an example of one of the many bills concerning the LGBTQ+ community that have been introduced in state legislatures across the United States in recent years. Many in the United States, including Clark, are passionate that this kind of bill harms the entire population of the cities where they’re passed, not just those in the LGBTQ+ community. “These politicians need to understand who their demographics are and be supportive of that. What they’re doing is they’re creating a wedge between a lot of different people, and it’s going to continue to get bigger, and there’s just going to be more hate. We need to stop moving away from progress; even children are being hurt because of it,” says Clark. However, others throughout the United States argue that such bills are beneficial to entire cities. “We want public facilities that are safe and accommodating for everyone and this bill increases privacy protections for all,” Cox said in a statement.
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Utah First State in 2024 to Pass Transgender Bathroom Bill
Kez Zimmerman, Copy Editor
March 11, 2024
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