Rep. Nicholeen Peck, R-Tooele, published HB521 Tuesday. The bill would prohibit the use of public funding for gender-transition medical treatments and procedures, including hormone therapies and surgeries done to facilitate an individual’s sex change.
In simpler terms: transgender people who rely on government health programs — such as Medicaid, Medicare, or state insurance plans — would be blocked from gender-affirming care.
Summit Pride is a nonprofit coalition for LGBTQ+ people in the Wasatch Back. Member Sean Udell said HB521 is one of several bills focusing on transgender people.
“This is just kind of a constant drip, drip to make the state unlivable for folks who are not cisgender and heterosexual,” he said.
The bill comes two years after the Beehive State passed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. And last week, Gov. Spencer Cox signed HB269 into law; it prohibits transgender college students at public institutions from living in dorms aligning with their gender identity.
Utah lawmakers are also working on passing legislation to prevent incarcerated transgender people from starting hormone treatments or pursuing gender-affirming surgery, and to prohibit a public employer from punishing employees who refuse to use “gender-specific language to accommodate another individual.”
President Donald Trump has also signed multiple executive orders focusing on transgender adults, including an order for federal agencies to only recognize gender as male or female. It claims to protect women’s rights, but it effectively dismisses the existence of transgender, nonbinary or intersex people.
“Imagine what it's like to have your life and your quality of life be hanging in the balance constantly at the hands of legislators and courts, and that's what the queer community is facing currently,” Summit Pride member Virginia Solomon said.
Udell said as a psychiatrist he sees firsthand how these bills and executive orders negatively affect Utahns.
“I have a front-row seat to the sort of mental health epidemic that's facing our youth and young adults as a result of this, you know, pretty hideous legislation that's coming out,” he said.
He said while Park City and Summit County are generally very inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community, not all areas are welcoming. He said there’s a stigma around gender-affirming care; many associate it only with transgender people, but they aren’t the only patients who receive this care.
“Women who are entering perimenopause, menopause, are frequently seeking gender-affirming care for their cisgender identity,” Udell said. “Advocates against this will cite health reasons or moral reasons, but we do gender-affirming care for all sorts of people, including minors, and to ban it for trans folks is just plainly transphobic.”
HB521 has been introduced but has not yet been heard by a House committee.
