‘It's about segregation': Opponents of transgender housing bill make their case again
McKinsey Robertson hugs her daughter, Marcie Robertson, who testified against HB269, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (Photo by Vanessa Hudson for Utah News Dispatch)
Marcie Robertson told Utah lawmakers that she's been attacked and demonized relentlessly since being swept up in a furor over transgender student housing at the state universities.
'My life has been excruciating since this began to unfold, as I struggled to balance my academic workload, resident assistant responsibilities and participation in extracurricular activities,' Robertson said at Thursday's Senate Education Committee hearing, telling her story publicly for the first time and opposing a bill that would restrict which dorm rooms transgender students could live in.
'(The) cherry on top of this fiasco is the proposed legislation that would see myself and all other trans students removed from our apartments and barred from rooming with others who share our gender identities,' she said.
HB269, proposed by Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, has been framed by Republican lawmakers as a privacy bill that closes 'loopholes' in last year's HB257, the law that restricts people to only using bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth when in government buildings. The new bill would also require transgender students at public universities live in dorms corresponding with their sex designated at birth.
But opponents of Gricius' bill, like Robertson, don't see it as a privacy matter.
'Where was that concern for privacy when I was doxxed? Where was that concern for privacy when I had to enlist the help of friends to walk me to and from class for fear of my own safety?' Robertson asked. 'The principle of equality before the law states that you ought not to curtail the rights of one to preserve the comfort of another.'
At the presenters' table, Robertson was seated next to her former suitemate, Avery Saltzman, who testified in favor of the bill. Saltzman's mother complained to the university about her daughter's living situation, which included living with a transgender roommate, in a viral Facebook post.
'My university interviewed and hired someone of the opposite sex to live in my girls designated apartment without letting me or any of my roommates know about it,' Avery Saltzman said. 'It is disappointing and frightening how quickly our rights and safety were brushed aside.'
Cheryl Saltzman, Avery Saltzman's mother, who also testified at the hearing, said what her daughter went through should have never happened in the first place.
'The clear and obvious boundaries of female space should never have been crossed, and I'm very sorry to those people who believe that their housing is being restricted or that they are being targeted or bullied,' she said. 'This is not my intention. It is only to restore a boundary that should never have been crossed.'
But critics of the bill said the legislation restricts the freedom of transgender students. Zee Kilpack told the committee they were worried this would ban transgender students from living on campus at all.
'What we're looking at here is an example of early segregation,' Kilpack said. 'Legislation like this is similar to Jim Crow mindset: separation based on unsubstantiated fear when we can have conversations to find accommodations that work for everybody.'
The bill's Senate sponsor, Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, said he appreciated everyone who had voiced their concerns over the bill.
'I do believe that this is the correct policy, with an understanding that there are many that disagree with me and listening does not necessarily mean that the other person does exactly what you want,' he said. 'I hope everyone knows that I am listening, in spite of disagreeing on the policy.'
The bill is one step closer to becoming law after passing the House Tuesday, 59-13. HB269 passed out of the Senate Education Committee on Thursday in a 5-1 vote, with Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, dissenting. It's not clear yet when the Senate will vote on the bill.
Riebe said HB269 is government overreach and doesn't give people who may want to have a different experience the option to live with someone of a different gender identity.
'It is a solution looking for a problem, and it's so restrictive that it doesn't give us an opportunity to be more compassionate to someone that we have not met,' she said. 'It doesn't give us an opportunity to maybe explore something that we've never explored before.'
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Trump is brushing aside old alliances and foreign aid that have helped maintain peace for decades, Purdy asserted. 'It signals a real dark turn if we're just going to roll out the tanks,' Purdy said. 'People are the Army' Michael Nardotti, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said military hardware has long been in American parades, which can help recruitment. More important, he said, is the tremendous value in the public seeing soldiers' faces in a parade when active-duty troops make up less than 1% of the population. ''People are the Army,'' said Nardotti, 78, of Aldie, Virginia, quoting a former Army chief of staff. Nardotti said he'll listen carefully to Trump's speech. 'I hope it sends the right message,' he said.
