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Mayson Weissinger wants Utah lawmakers to understand that transgender people are not a threat.
“We are here, we are real, we are not a figment of someone’s ideology,” Weissinger told lawmakers as they considered a bill that would expand on a law enacted in 2024.
That law banned transgender students from living in single-sex public college dorms that align with their gender identity. HB404 would expand the ban to private residences advertised as single-sex where people share sleeping areas or bathrooms.
Rep. David Shallenberger, an Orem Republican sponsoring the bill, told the House Business, Labor, and Commerce Committee that the intent is to “very narrowly, sort of, tie a loophole for off-campus housing” that was left in the previous legislation.
‘Nibbled away opportunities’
Queer Utahns and advocates call it an overreach and see it as related to how lawmakers have curbed trans rights in recent years.
Shallenberger’s proposed law is part of a slate of bills from the GOP supermajority aimed at transgender people, setting up a possible fifth consecutive year of lawmakers restricting their rights.
April Gardner, a lifelong Utahn, recalled being proud during the 2015 passage of anti-discrimination legislation that included sexual orientation and gender identity.
“We recognized the true, full humanity of our broad coalition of Utahns,” Gardner said. “And it’s been heartbreaking over the last five or six years to see pieces of that commitment betrayed as bills have come every year that have nibbled away opportunity for trans people.”
Gardner asked lawmakers to “recognize our humanity and stop taking away pieces of what trans people can do in our communities.”
Lawmakers repeatedly emphasized that the bill is narrowly tailored to make a small change: It would allow landlords to restrict group living accommodations like dorms and boarding houses to people of the same biological sex at birth.
State law says that biological sex is based on “distinct reproductive roles as manifested by sex and reproductive organ anatomy, chromosomal makeup, and endogenous hormone profiles.”
Using “biological sex” mirrors actions by President Donald Trump’s administration, such as an executive order proclaiming that the U.S. government will recognize only two sexes.
Critics have said that doing so ignores modern science and can be used to exclude or mistreat members of the LGBTQ community.
Little shifts to major disruptions
The little shifts over time can lead to major disruptions, Weissinger said.
“What you’re talking about is legal discrimination,” Weissinger said. “And that sets a very dangerous precedent, especially when we’re talking about the roof over people’s heads.”
Trans people already are a highly vulnerable group.
A 2023 survey by KFF and The Washington Post showed that trans adults often face discrimination and harassment, with 25% saying they had been physically attacked, 64% verbally attacked and 41% who felt unsafe in a restroom or locker room.
The bill could worsen that, said Xiamu Li, who is gender fluid.
It could out transgender individuals, Li said, putting them at risk, because lawmakers are singling them out “under the premise that they aren’t who they say they are.”
Supporter says the bill would protect ‘every individual’
Two of the 11 people who spoke to the committee testified in favor of the bill.
Dalane England spoke on behalf of the United Women’s Forum and the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, saying the bill would protect “every individual” and safeguard privacy rights, especially those of people who don’t “want to share private space with someone of the opposite sex.”
Dr. David Boettger, a retired pediatrician who has testified on behalf of several anti-trans bills, told legislators that “gender ideology is crashing down around us under the weight of its own malfeasance, evidence-based medicine, civil suits and common sense.”