Transgender individuals may be required to be admitted to dormitories by public colleges based on their natural sex.
State lawmakers introduced a bill on Tuesday that would require students to live in university cover that corresponds to their sex in response to concerns about a trans resident assistant in a Utah State University bedroom.
The bill, HB 269, passed the Utah House in a 59-13 voting, and then heads to the Senate for attention.
The bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, would involve all public higher education institutions to grant pupils a bedroom area based on their sexual “regardless of female identity.”
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, one of the justifications lawmakers used was in response to a new web controversy involving a man student acting as an RA for female students at a Utah State bedroom. The scholar identified as a trans woman.
According to The Tribune, Democratic lawmakers reportedly want to safeguard young people from harm.
Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, also said that the condition don’t wait until” something awful happens” to protect people.
Lee stated that as the father of two women, he wants to make sure that both his sons and other adult students feel secure and at ease while living on campus. He is also already running a bill to ban pride flags in K-12 schools.
He was joined by rookie Rep. Doug Fiefia, R-Herriman, who spoke of his three sons, too, and said the bill is” no on bias” but safety.
But, Rep. Sahara Hayes, D-Salt Lake City, who identifies as lesbian, opposed the bill, describing it as an attack on the “LGBTQ community”, according to the document.
” I have to inform you, the LGBTQ community is so frustrated”, Hayes said. ” We are so tired of being scared every year when this figure meets, because we don’t know how we’re going to get targeted. … But it’s starting to feel obvious that it’s going to occur”.
An website story about a transgender student in a Utah State dormitory earlier this month attracted a lot of attention online.
The mom of a woman university student, who later learned that the RA in her house was a man who identified as feminine, is where the story began, according to The College Fix.
” We will not bear this any more. In response to the narrative, House Speaker Mike Schultz wrote on X that” we will make it clear that female areas are reserved for biological women only.” No person should ever feel compelled to travel to our university campuses to feel secure and at ease.
The Fix reported more:
Traditional Utah pundit Eric Moutsos made the controversy roil after he posted on X that” Utah State University’s children’s dorm has reportedly allowed a’transgender ‘ person as a’ Dorm Mom,” turning a supposedly safe haven for sexual students into a nightmare of wokism that threatens the health of female people.”
He cited a Facebook post from” a concerned mother” outraged “because a man has now moved into her daughter’s all-women’s secure environment ( Merrill Hall Dorm ) without notice to the women students”.
“…After her grievance, the school, in a condescending walk, basically offered her daughter alternative housing, showing apparent negligence towards the safety and privacy of the remaining adult students in the dorm”, he continued.
But, Amanda DeRito, a university spokesman, claimed the institution is simply upholding the law.
She said the school does not have an all-women’s bedroom, and a state in the popular blog that the transgender scholar serves as a “dorm mother” is false.
” For quality, USU does not have all-female or all-male home rooms”, DeRito told The Fix. “RAs are students who serve as gaze advisors, and both women and men do so in addition to offering gaze advising to other individuals assigned to them, including men and women,” read more.
According to DeRito, the school must adhere to state and federal laws that prohibit housing discrimination, adding that “UTAH laws specifically protects transgender people from discrimination in both housing and employment.”
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IMAGE: Utah State University/Facebook
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