Advocacy

This bill is another attempt to target First Amendment protected expressive conduct. Last year, the legislature introduced and passed legislation targeting lewd behavior towards minors. That legislation has only been in effect since May 2024, and yet now HB 401 is being advanced to expand upon that prior legislation. This year’s bill includes vague language that is constitutionally problematic and could target protected First Amendment activity. The bill language is borrowed from a Tennessee statute that was introduced to prohibit drag performances.

Status: Introduced in 2025

This bill makes various technical changes to Utah’s School Activity Eligibility Commission, which is the body created by statute to determine whether trans kids can participate in school sports and activities. These changes include scheduling meetings, filling vacancies on the commission, and other procedural aspects.

Status: Introduced in 2025

While Equality Utah primarily focuses our resources on bills directly impacting the LGBTQ community, occasionally bills so aggressively impinge on the broader principles of democracy that it becomes important for us to unite with other community partners to voice collective opposition. HB 300 presents one of those circumstances. This bill essentially ends vote-by-mail in Utah by requiring all voters to return ballots to a polling location with limited hours, and which must be staffed by poll workers, who are charged with verifying voter identification. 96% of Utah voters in recent elections used vote-by-mail, demonstrating that the changes proposed by HB 300 are not necessary, and will make voting harder.

Status: Passed The House Government Operations Committee

This bill expands the reach of state anti-discrimination protections by reducing the minimum employee threshold from 15 to 5 workers. Under current law, only businesses with 15 or more employees must comply with state anti-discrimination regulations. By lowering this threshold to 5 employees, the bill would extend these important workplace protections to employees of smaller businesses. In the Senate committee hearing, language regarding sexual harassment was added, but the committee members failed to lower the threshold of employees below 15.

Status: Passed The Senate Business and Labor Committee

This bill addresses various aspects of foster care placement. Importantly, the bill considers rooming requirements for foster children, taking into account biological gender and relationship between children; prevents a child from being placed with a family who is not supportive of a child’s gender identity or sexual orientation; does not allow support or lack of support of a child’s LGBTQ status from being determinative in custody or reunification decisions, unless potential for harm to a child exists.

Status: Introduced, sent to The House Health and Human Services Committee

The bill modifies HB 257 from the 2024 Legislative Session, which restricted access to privacy spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms, by adding higher education student housing as a privacy space. Under the substitute bill adopted in committee, sex-segregated student housing on Utah’s public college campuses is now restricted based on birth-sex, with the original exceptions (birth certificate changes and primary sex characteristic surgery) being eliminated. The bill maintains provisions allowing universities to offer co-ed, multigender dorm facilities. The bill was amended during the Senate Floor debate with a few technical, non-substantive changes.

Status: Advances to Governor’s Desk for Signature

Prohibits the Department of Corrections from allowing an inmate to initiate gender transition by means of cross-sex hormones, primary or secondary sex characteristic surgical procedures or puberty blockers. The bill also restricts placement in secure care and youth rooms by gender assigned at birth.

Status: Passed The Utah House, sent to Senate Judiciary Committee.

This bill prevents disciplinary action from being taken against a Utah public school teacher for using a name or pronoun other than that requested by the student, so long as done in good faith, or at the request of the student’s parents. The bill also limits disciplinary action from being taken against a government employee for using a name or pronoun other than that requested by another employee, so long as done in good faith or because of a sincerely held religious or moral belief.

Status: Introduced, sent to House Education Committee.

This bill mirrors a bill introduced in the 2024 legislative session that would have banned the display of flags in public school classrooms, including pride flags. This year’s version would allow parents to sue a school for violating the law.

Status: Introduced, sent to House Education Committee.