Utah House Republicans passed a bill on Friday that would protect women’s spaces — including bathrooms, locker rooms, and shelters.
The bill — called HB257 or Sex-Based Designations for Privacy, Anti-Bullying, and Women’s Opportunities — ultimately bars men who identify as women from accessing female-designated spaces unless they have had a “primary sex characteristic surgical procedure” and have officially changed the sex on their birth certificates.
The bill passed 52-17, with three Republicans voting with Democrats — including state Reps. Judy Rohner, Anthony Loubet, and Marsha Judkins. The bill, sponsored by GOP Rep. Kera Birkeland, would also require transgender children and adults to use unisex or single-occupancy bathrooms in government and state-funded buildings — including schools, county buildings, and domestic violence shelters. The legislation would additionally require the construction of more single-use stalls and unisex bathrooms at state-funded facilities.
“This bill doesn’t target one specific group,” Birkeland said, according to a KUER 90.1 report. “It creates privacy for every Utahn.”
Republican State Rep. Cheryl Acton agreed, saying that the bill provides “reasonable accommodations” and “augments peace of mind.”
“This would be for women, especially in locker rooms, in homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters, women who are incarcerated to know that they have a safe place,” Acton said. “Many of these women in some of these facilities have been traumatized in the past, and being around other women in a secure environment is reassuring to them.”
Transgender activists often insist that individuals who identify as a different sex than they were born have a right to use facilities that align with their created identity. The outcome of this push around the country has resulted in biological men who believe they are women — some of whom are still attracted to women — accessing women’s spaces.
For example, in New York, a male-born transgender was convicted in 2022 for raping a woman while being kept in the women’s section of Riker’s Island. In Wisconsin, female inmates have been forced to share a prison with a male-born transgender who raped his ten-year-old daughter. There have been other news stories documenting men who identify as women allegedly exposing their genitals in front of minors in female-designated locker rooms.
Even so, Democrat Rep. Sahara Hayes, an openly LGBTQ+ legislator, claimed during her speech before the vote that the bill is “regulating and restricting trans people’s ability to exist in public spaces in our society” for a population that already experiences a “disproportionately high risk for suicide and depression.”
“We are sending messages that people can be criminals for existing in bathrooms,” Hayes claimed. “And I don’t know what that says to LGBTQ and to transgender Utahns who have just as much of a right to be here as everybody else when we imply that we don’t even trust them to pee in public. That’s a problem.”
Rep. Anthony Loubet, one of the three Republican lawmakers who voted no on the bill, said in a statement to the radio station that he had “some unresolved concerns and questions” about the legislation.
“I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for and support the bill at this time,” he said. “In our democratic process, diverse opinions and perspectives are essential for robust decision-making. I respect the varying viewpoints within our legislative body and am open to constructive dialogue on this issue.”
The bill is headed to the Utah Senate for deliberation.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
