New Utah Bill Would Strip Trans Discrimination Protections, Ban Trans Pediatricians and Teachers, and Force Courts to Favor a Trans Kid’s Unsupportive Parent in Custody Battles

One of the most extreme anti-trans bills ever proposed, the bill would also ban birth certificate amendments and tighten bathroom restrictions in schools.

The Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City | Image: Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday, 2 weeks ahead of this year’s legislative session in Utah, Republican state Representative Trevor Lee proposed a radical anti-trans bill that aims to eliminate most rights for trans people in the state. In its 6,000+ lines, the bill, known as HB 183, systematically targets and removes any mention of gender identity in state law while replacing instances of the term “gender” with “sex.” Simply put, if passed, HB 183 would likely constitute the single most sweeping anti-trans law in American history.

The first thing HB 183 modifies is discrimination protections. Back in 2015, Utah Republicans shocked the nation when they proposed and passed discrimination protections covering gender identity and sexual orientation. However, as a compromise to keep anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives at bay, this came with one notable exception: the law in question, SB 296, only covered employment and housing and not public accommodations, something conservatives claimed would vastly impact religious freedoms.

That said, SB 296 was certainly a step in the right direction. To date, this makes Utah the only state to have passed at least some LGBTQ+ discrimination protections while under total Republican control. Yet, if HB 183 passes and the gender identity provisions are removed, that landmark compromise will be partially undone. In fact, it already was: last year, Utah passed HB 269, which introduced a carveout to existing protections that allows educational institutions to segregate dormitories by “biological sex.”

But this time around, if Utah Republicans opt for a full repeal, they wouldn’t be alone in doing so. The same year that Utah weakened its housing discrimination protections, Republicans in Iowa—where Democrats had passed comprehensive gender identity anti-discrimination laws in 2007—repealed those protections entirely through SF 418, which, similar to HB 183, targeted all instances of “gender identity” in Iowa law. Around the same time, New Hampshire, the other currently Republican-controlled state to have gender identity protections on the books, also passed a law carving out an exception to allow public accommodations to restrict bathrooms, but this was vetoed by the state’s Republican governor.

However, when it comes to employment, HB 183 not only removes existing protections, but it also actively introduces new ones. Under the bill, any medical provider regulated by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services would be barred from “assigning an employee, who presents as a sex that is different from the employee’s biological sex while actively working for the provider, duties that allow face-to-face and prolonged contact with a child,” where “prolonged contact” is defined as “contact that exceeds five minutes.” This would effectively constitute a ban on transgender pediatricians, forcing trans people who have built careers in the field to uproot their lives and change to another profession or move states entirely.

Similarly, K-12 school districts would also be prohibited from allowing transgender teachers from having “face-to-face and prolonged contact with a child,” where “prolonged contact” is once again defined as being “contact that exceeds five minutes.” Unlike laws like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, this provision doesn’t just ban transgender teachers from discussing their gender identity with students; it actively bans them from teaching altogether. Make no mistake: these two provisions are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at removing transgender individuals from public life.

On top of that, the bill also aims to prohibit amending gender markers on birth certificates, which currently requires a court order. This was affirmed in the 2021 case dubbed “In re Sex Change,” where the Utah Supreme Court ruled 4–1 that, because the state’s courts have exclusive jurisdiction over modifying “facets of [someone’s] personal legal status”—including name, marital status, and even legal parentage—that also extends to someone’s “sex designation.” Because of this, Utah is the only GOP-controlled state to allow “X” markers on birth certificates and, along with New Hampshire, the only GOP-controlled state to do so for state IDs.

That all comes down to the fact that the Utah judiciary isn’t partisan like in other states. Instead, judges are selected via a merit-based system that essentially ensures their independence—something that has repeatedly put the courts at odds with the increasingly hawkish Utah state legislature on issues like gerrymandering and abortion. Should HB 183’s restrictions on birth certificates pass, it’s likely that the court will step in to reassert its authority over gender markers.

Additionally, it’s possible that the bill could result in a ban on ID changes as well. A provision found deep within the bill—Section 62—would require state agencies to use the term “sex” when referring to “biological sex.” In Utah, the information found on driver’s licenses is governed by § 53-3-205, where the term “sex” is used. While this isn’t an open and shut case for a ban, there’s precedent for this conclusion: a similar provision in Iowa’s aforementioned SF 418 resulted in the state banning changes to gender markers on driver’s licenses.

The bill would also slightly tweak Utah’s bathroom law, HB 257, by forcing students in K-12 schools to use bathrooms “that match their sex” if a unisex one is not available.

Finally—and perhaps most egregiously—HB 183 modifies the factors courts must take into consideration when determining custody of children during a dispute. Currently, under § 81-9-204, courts are forbidden from “discriminating against a parent based upon the parent’s agreement or disagreement” with their child’s gender identity, but under this final provision, that language will be removed. Instead, courts will need to “weigh in a parent’s favor evidence that the parent does not support a minor child’s asserted gender identity if the gender identity is inconsistent with the child’s sex.” In other words, the bill attempts to force trans kids into unsupportive homes, and this can endanger their lives. This doesn’t “protect kids” like conservatives claim—it actively seeks to harm them because of who they are.

At a time when Republicans’ rhetoric against trans people is escalating, extreme bills like this one are becoming much more common. And although Utah’s courts will be able to step in on some of these provisions, they have virtually no say over things like stripping discrimination protections and modifying custody factors. That said, because it has zero cosponsors, its passage seems fairly unlikely.

But one thing is clear: if this bill were to pass in the coming months, Utah will become unlivable for trans people.