This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

When I was a 10-year old girl, I visited the girls' bathroom at Lake Tahoe's Squaw Valley ski resort. I was wearing a ski hat, ski goggles, ski sweater, ski pants, ski boots and a frozen face.

An adult woman told me I was in the wrong bathroom. It was not the first time in my "Scout Finch-like" precocious years that I felt like I might have greater personal knowledge than the nearest grown-up.

It was 1966, and I lived in the San Francisco Bay area with exposure to constant news from the Oakland Tribune on civil rights unrest. I wondered, "Were people truly upset because recently 'blacks' were allowed to use the same rest rooms as 'whites'?" "Who was Gov. George Wallace constantly defiant and yelling about 'states' rights' and why would that mean it was OK to be so unfair?"

Fast-forward 50 years. I remain flummoxed about so-called adult behavior.

In the intervening years, I graduated from BYU and its law school and later got to work for a public interest legal non-profit. I was invited to give dozens of guest lectures and speeches on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which guarantees individual liberties, often speech or action contrary to the majority view, against unreasonable government prohibition.

I enjoyed explaining how the government, to whom "we the people" gave the power, cannot infringe upon our freedoms unless the reason is a very good one — like public safety in the face of an actual danger, not just random fear, and the government cannot act unfairly discriminatory in places of public accommodation.

In my daily life now, as a silver-haired wife and mother, I sometimes visit public places ­­— restaurants, schools or cultural events — where not enough restroom stalls are provided for women to use in the time available. I have sometimes used the "men's room" for efficiency.

When I emerge, other women in line often observe me with envy for my small courage, not ever with reprobation. To be honest, the only thing I really feared was encountering a sometimes messier condition in the men's bathrooms, never violence. I avoid these restrooms if I have a practical choice.

This week, the state of Utah, Office of the Attorney General (a place where I once worked and wrote legal briefs) filed suit with 10 other states to challenge the use of public restrooms by people wishing to simply use the bathroom that conforms to their own sexual identity.

Utah's Attorney General cites "states' rights" as the reason to compel people to use a bathroom that would not match their gender presentation. I assume the legal brief involved does not say that the challenge is based upon unreasonable and unsubstantiated fear, or outright bigotry.

I had imagined other (more seemingly primitive or unenlightened) states wanting to go back 50 years to a time when the use of public restrooms was separated by skin color. I wondered if they also might not add, for good measure, additional barriers based upon nationality, ethnicity, religion or age, just to keep all awkward differences at a minimum.

I guess I was naive to think Utah was not among these states.

I remain as flummoxed as I was at age 10 in 1966.

We never seem to learn.

Dani Eyer is the former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah.