Utah Legislature passes bill restricting on-campus housing for transgender college students. 

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A bill limiting on-campus housing options for transgender university students is headed to the governor’s desk after clearing both chambers of the Utah Legislature on Monday.

Despite concerns over HB269’s impact on trans students and the potential for governmental overreach, the Senate voted 20-7 on Thursday to pass the bill, following a 59-13 vote of the Utah House in January. Members of the House then held a procedural vote on Monday to finalize passage of HB269, concurring with minor amendments to the bill that were made on the Senate floor.

“This is four years in a row that we've put legislation in that makes members of our transgender community feel pretty isolated, and also, I think, pretty hurt,” Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, said before voting against the bill Thursday.

HB269 requires that a student’s biological sex determine what gender-specific housing options they’re eligible for. It also specifies that only unamended birth certificates be used to determine sex unless the amendment was made to correct an error. Medical documentation could not be considered.

The bill was drafted after a controversy from Utah State University gained nationwide attention on social media.

Earlier this year, USU student Avery Saltzman was assigned a new roommate named Marcie Robertson. However, after finding out that Robertson was a transgender woman, Saltzman requested a room reassignment. Saltzman was given a new dorm in the same building, but her mother took to social media to share the story. Saltzman and Robertson both spoke on the bill during a Senate Education Committee meeting last week.

“I would never have chosen to live on campus in an apartment with a man identifying as a woman,” Saltzman told the committee. “No girl should feel pressured to dorm with a male because they feel they have to be inclusive.”

Saltzman called the university’s response to her concerns “disappointing and frightening.”

Robertson, on the other hand, shared that she’s received credible threats to her safety after she was doxed in the aftermath of the controversy. She called her experience dealing with the fallout “excruciating.”

“This legislation is a gross overstep into the university's housing policy and the housing rights of transgender individuals,” Robertson said. “Comfort and understanding is not bred out of shoving us in a corner. It's done by open conversation. This is not the answer.”

Several senators shared similar concerns with HB269 during a preliminary vote on the bill on Wednesday. Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, called the bill “heavy-handed.”

“I think that we should provide the local universities with the options to deal with this the way they need to,” she said.

On the other hand, Sen. David Hinkins, R-Ferron, argued that if students don’t like the policy, they don’t have to live on campus.

“I'm tired of people coming to the state because they don't fit,” he said. “If they got guidelines, and I can't live by their guidelines, then I should go find something else.”

Sen. Daniel McCay, R- Riverton, offered his support for the bill and argued that its policies should apply to privately owned student housing, too. As it stands now, the bill would only apply to residential buildings owned and operated by universities themselves.

“My issue is that these private owners are really acting as an extension of the university,” McCay said. “Having no protections in there makes me a little bit concerned.”

Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, questioned the logic behind the bill’s guidance for determining sex, especially when individuals who have fully transitioned will have to be identified by their sex at birth.

“The genetic piece is not as clear when you're visually looking at someone that has gone through changing their birth certificate … and has also gone through transition in medical surgical procedures,” she said. “I think this bill is just putting us behind instead of moving us forward.”

On the other hand, Sen. Heidi Balderree, R-Lehi, raised Saltzman’s experience to emphasize the importance of female-only spaces before voting for the bill.

“Today I speak of Avery Saltzman, a woman whose side of the story must not be erased. We need to talk about women having the right to have women-only spaces,” she said. “Biological women matter just as much as biological males, identifying as trans women, do.”

But Plumb said the legislation reminds her of past “separate but equal” policies.

“Looking historically, I feel like our nation has perhaps had some challenging histories around the establishment of separate but equal spaces, and this gives me some of that pause,” she said. She quoted singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins, urging the Senate to “have more heart to heart” on this issue.