SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A bill proposing restrictions on transgender students in university housing is making its way back to the Utah House after it passed the Senate Thursday afternoon.
H.B. 269 “Privacy Protections in Sex-designated Areas“ is returning to the House after 20 out of 29 senators voted in favor of the bill. If signed into law, the bill would restrict transgender students from living in sex-designated housing that does not align with their biological sex. The proposed law would not apply to unisex or single-occupant housing.
H.B. 269 makes exceptions for intersex individuals. The bill also outlines how a student can refute an allegation that they are in the wrong sex-designated housing by providing an “unamended” birth certificate.
While there is no way of predicting the future, the unamended version of this bill decisively passed with 59 votes of approval and 13 opposing votes in the House last week. Representatives will now look over any changes made to the bill and take another vote before it heads to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk.
Supporters of H.B. 269 say restricting transgender students from sex-designated housing would better protect the privacy of students.
“To preserve the individual privacy of males and females, a degree-granting institution that provides student housing may only rent to, assign, or otherwise place an individual in a dwelling unit that is sex-designated … if the individual’s sex corresponds with the sex designation of the dwelling unit,” the bill reads.
The bill comes shortly after House Speaker Mike Shultz called out a transgender woman for serving as a “dorm mom” to female students at Utah State University.
The university responded at the time saying it “does not have all-female or all-male residence halls,” and the housing in question is a co-ed hall. One parent said the transgender student was living in her daughter’s apartment, but the university did not confirm or deny this claim, saying only that the student worked as a resident assistant.
During the Senate debate, Democratic Senator Kathleen Riebe said some people had expressed that this bill “was heavy-handed” and “government overreach.”
Senator Jen Plumb suggested this bill might have been put together hastily as the incident that sparked the legislation happened only weeks before the session. She then told stories of her own college experience, saying discomfort is real and a part of “the college experience.”
“I have to wonder if there’s not a way for us to navigate these spaces where there’s discomfort in a way that doesn’t ‘other’ people and make people feel as if they’re being legislated out of existence,” she said.
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