Salt Lake City, Utah — As Utah lawmakers prepare to open their 2026 legislative session, LGBTQ+ advocates are raising alarms over a proposed bill they describe as one of the most sweeping and damaging attacks on transgender rights the state has seen.
House Bill 183, sponsored by Rep. Trevor Lee, a Republican from Layton, would make extensive changes across Utah law by removing the word “gender” and replacing it with “sex” in numerous statutes. According to Equality Utah policy director Marina Lowe, the bill would significantly weaken or eliminate existing protections against discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations for transgender people.
The proposal would also prohibit changes to the sex marker on birth certificates, restrict transgender individuals from working in certain school and child-facing roles, and instruct courts in custody cases to favor parents who do not support a child’s gender identity. Another provision would remove “gender identity” from a list of protected groups used by the state to reject disparaging personalized license plates.
Lowe said the bill would effectively erase transgender people from state law while allowing discrimination to become legally sanctioned. She also warned it would undermine the 2015 “Utah Compromise,” a bipartisan law backed by both LGBTQ+ advocates and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that balanced anti-discrimination protections with religious freedom.
Rep. Lee defended the bill as an effort to return to what he called “basic biology,” arguing there are only two sexes and dismissing gender identity as a legal concept. Senate President Stuart Adams expressed skepticism about reopening the 2015 compromise, signaling potential resistance in the Senate as the session begins.
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