Latest news with #AverySaltzman
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill to restrict transgender students in Utah college dorms heads to Gov. Cox
Members of the House of Representatives work at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) The Utah Legislature has given final legislative approval to a bill that restricts where transgender college students can and can't live in public universities. The House on Monday gave a final nod to HB289 with a 59-14 vote after the Senate last week passed it 22-7. The bill now goes to Gov. Spencer Cox's desk. Cox did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. But the Republican governor told Utah News Dispatch last month that he was aware of HB289 and supportive of the effort, which he called a 'tweak' to a bill lawmakers passed last year restricting transgender access in sex-designated bathrooms and locker rooms in publicly-owned and controlled buildings. 'We've had parents that are concerned and we've been very focused last year on making sure we have safe spaces for women. That's really important,' Cox told the Dispatch at the time. 'We want to make sure that continues.' The bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, would require transgender students at public universities to live in dorms corresponding with their sex at birth. Utah poised to pass transgender rule on dorms, marking 4th year of LGBTQ+ restrictions Supporters argue it's meant to create privacy protections, especially for female students. Opponents decry it as legislation that targets the transgender community, creates potential for litigation, and is part of four years of action from the Utah Legislature aimed at 'erasing' transgender people from public spaces. Utah's Republican legislative leadership prioritized the bill in the first weeks of the 2025 legislative session that began Jan. 21 after a viral social media post in which a mother of a Utah State University student complained to the school that her daughter was sharing a common area with a transgender resident assistant. Both the student and her mother — Cheryl Saltzman and Avery Saltzman — and Marcie Robertson, the resident assistant who identifies as transgender, testified to lawmakers during the bill's public hearing. Robertson told lawmakers her life has been 'excruciating' as she's struggled to balance her school work while being attacked and demonized relentlessly since being swept up in the furor over the issue. '(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. As transgender restriction bills pile up, LGBTQ+ supporters stage cheerful protest Avery Saltzman said it was 'disappointing and frightening' that the university hired 'someone of the opposite sex to live in my girls-designated apartment without letting me or any of my roommates know about it.' '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,' her mother, Cheryl Saltzman said. 'This is not my intention. It is only to restore a boundary that should never have been crossed.' The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah opposes the bill, characterizing it on its website as a bill that 'further restricts the rights of transgender people in Utah.' 'Colleges and universities already have processes through which housing assignments can be changed at a student's request,' the ACLU of Utah says. 'This bill is a redundant piece of legislation that only further marginalizes trans-Utahns.' The bill now goes to Cox's desk. He can either sign it, veto it or let it become law without his signature. Given his past comments of support, a veto isn't expected. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A bill on housing for transgender students passes Utah Senate committee
A state Senate committee heard emotional testimony on House Bill 269 on Thursday. The bill would prohibit transgender students at public colleges from living in dorms that don't match their biological sex. The bill, which, as the Deseret News previously reported, already received approval from a House committee, continues to generate intense debate. Front and center at the hearing were two Utah State University students — freshman Avery Saltzman and sophomore Marcie Robertson, a transgender resident assistant. The two were randomly assigned to room together. 'I would never have chosen to live on campus in an apartment with a man identifying as a woman,' Saltzman told the Senate Education Committee. '(This situation) puts women in a position where we have to decide to put ourselves at risk... or face social persecution.' 'I began receiving harassing emails and credible threats to safety,' Robertson said. 'If this legislation is truly about the comfort of cis-gender students, then it is sorely counterproductive to remove transgender people from sex-designated housing... Comfort and understanding is not bred out of shoving us in a corner. It's done by open conversation.' The bill passed the Senate Education Committee. All committee members but Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Salt Lake City, voted in favor of the bill. The bill now heads to the full Senate. The bill, HB269, tries to balance anti-discrimination protections with privacy concerns over restrooms, locker rooms and housing. Specifically, the bill mandates that individuals stay in rooms that correspond with their sex designation, regardless of their gender identity or even the sex their birth certificate indicates (in the case of birth certificate changes). The ACLU of Utah is opposed to the legislation, as is the Utah House Democratic Caucus, which released a public statement outlining their unanimous opposition to the bill, where they expressed their dismay with the legislation. But supporters of the bill say that the measure ensures safety and privacy. 'We shouldn't be here,' testified Cheryl Saltzman, Avery Saltzman's mother. 'This should never have been allowed to happen. 'My intention... is to protect my three daughters and every single woman."
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘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.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
