When Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in 2023, he described the bill as “pausing” treatments “until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences.”
But Tuesday, three weeks after The Salt Lake Tribune reported that an evidence review commissioned by the Legislature under the law concluded that such care resulted in “positive ... outcomes” for transgender youth, the governor told reporters Utah’s ban is “probably in the right place right now.”
“There doesn’t seem to be an appetite to readdress it. I think things have shifted significantly over the past couple years,” Cox said during a news conference broadcast on PBS Utah.
The governor’s office previously ignored inquiries from The Tribune, and later other local and national outlets, about his reaction to the evidence review and a subsequent report from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
Headed by a Cox-appointee, a commission under the agency’s purview wrote to lawmakers that it “does not take a position on whether to lift the moratorium.” The group did, however, offer recommendations on how the state might responsibly move forward if the Legislature decided to do so.
A May statement from House Republicans indicated that they were dismissing the evidence review’s conclusions and had no plans to end the ban. Senate President Stuart Adams said state senators “will review the report.”
Spokespeople for the governor did not respond to questions sent following his Tuesday remarks about whether he, or a member of his staff, read the entire 1,026-page evidence review compiled by the Drug Regimen Review Center at the University of Utah.
In an interview with KSL.com, the center’s director, Joanne LaFleur, said, “I think it would be hard to look through the evidence tables in our report and conclude that there is ‘not enough research’ on the question of how effective and safe these treatments are for the outcomes we looked at.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Hundreds of people show up at the Utah State Capitol on Mar. 29, 2025 to fly the largest transgender pride flag in Utah. The unveiling of the flag is part of celebrations for Transgender Day of Visibility, hosted by local nonprofits Utah Pride Center and The Glitter Foundation.
Utah’s law bars gender transition-related surgeries for people under 18 years old, and also prohibits minors from accessing hormone therapy, including puberty blockers, in the state. Young people who had already been diagnosed with gender dysphoria before January 2023 were allowed to continue previously prescribed hormone treatments.
Doctors who provide care and violate the ban could lose their licenses and face criminal charges under the law.
Acknowledging that it “looks different to different people,” Cox said Tuesday that state officials’ priority is “making sure that we’re protecting our young people.”
But keeping the ban in place, the Drug Regimen Review Center’s findings suggest, may do the opposite. The center’s report read: “Increase risk of mortality was consistently due to increase in suicide, non-natural causes, and HIV/AIDS. Patients that were seen at the gender clinic before the age of 18 had a lower risk of suicide compared to those referred as an adult.”
As part of Utah‘s Student Health and Risk Prevention survey in 2023, approximately a quarter of transgender students polled reported attempting suicide at some point during the previous year, and 61% said they had seriously considered it, compared to 18% of their peers.
During his PBS Utah appearance, Cox pointed to other reports published in Europe and the U.K., saying, “The results of some of those practices are fairly disturbing when the results of those investigations have come out.”
His office did not answer follow-up requests for clarification on which studies the governor was citing, and why he is lending more credence to those than the recent Utah one.
While some European countries have relied on widely circulated — and widely criticized — reports with negative findings to restrict hormone treatments for transgender youth, none have enacted a total ban like Utah and other red states.
Cox’s delayed response and reluctance to embrace Utah’s evidence review come amid a continued seemingly rightward shift on his approach to the LGBTQ+ community and policies impacting it. This month, for the first time since the governor assumed the role, Cox did not issue a formal declaration as Pride celebrations began.
