Utah governor says he won’t sign anti-transgender sports ban

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he will not sign a bill passed Friday banning transgender student-athletes from competing in sports aligned with their gender identity.

House Bill 11 passed both chambers of the Utah legislature in the last hours of the 2022 legislative session after a last-minute amendment left LGBTQ rights activists “blindsided” and “devastated.”

“HB11 has been amended to become a total ban on transgender youth in school sports,” Equality Utah said in a statement Friday afternoon.

Cox, a Republican, told reporters after the vote that he was shocked with the last-minute revisions, and that he was “very disappointed in the process.”

“I just want (trans student-atheltes) to know that it’s gonna be OK. We’re gonna work through this,” he said, according to The Associated Press.

The original bill, which proposed the creation of a special commission to evaluate the eligibility of transgender students who wanted to play sports, was changed into an all-out ban in the proposal by state Sen. Dan McCay, released just hours before the end of the session.

“This is a betrayal of Utah’s LGBTQ community,” Equality Utah said noting that the Senate had introduced the new language on the last night of the legislative session “after months of good-faith negotiations.”

The amended bill passed by a 16-13 vote, with seven Republicans joining all six Democrats voting against, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. It later passed the state House, on a 46-29 vote, with several Republicans voting with Democrats against it.

But after Cox vowed to veto the “insidious ban,” LGBTQ rights advocates celebrated the governor’s pledge, noting that Utah is poised to become the first state this year to reject an anti-trans ban on student-athletes approved by lawmakers.

“Governor Cox promises to veto HB11! Thank you Governor for protecting transgender children! With your veto, HB 11 is dead. We are in tears. Thank you to every lawmaker, Democrat and Republican who voted against this insidious ban,” Equality Utah tweeted.

Cathryn Oakley, Human Rights Campaign’s state legislative director and senior counsel, said in a statement that “Cox deserves praise for standing up to those who continue to target and attack transgender youth,” as the first governor pledging to veto anti-trans legislation in 2022.

Last year, a record number of anti-LGBTQ laws were introduced in state legislatures. Most of them specifically target transgender youth.

On Thursday, Iowa became the 11th U.S. state to enact an anti-trans ban on transgender youth in the past two years. All of them are Republican-controlled states.

“Transgender kids are kids, and they do not deserve to be the targets of dehumanizing attacks that invalidate their identity. Like all children, they deserve the opportunity to play sports with their friends and learn important life skills like sportsmanship, teamwork and healthy competition through athletic participation,” Oakley said.

“Utahns deserve better than legislators who are seeking to bully transgender youth with politically motivated bills for the sake of discrimination itself. Gov. Cox has shown he sees the humanity of the transgender youth impacted by this legislation — something overnors in states like South Dakota and Iowa have not,” she added.

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