Utah passes transgender sports ban over governor's veto

Spencer Cox
(Image credit: Chad Hurst/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival)

Utah's Republican-dominated legislature overrode the governor's veto on Friday to pass a ban a bill banning transgender girls from participating in women's school sports, NPR reports.

The Utah House of Representatives voted 56-18 in favor of HB11, while the Senate voted 21-8, according to Deseret News. The bill determines sex according to "an individual's genetics and anatomy at birth."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Daily Wire podcast host Matt Walsh accused Cox of "gutlessness" and said conservatives should begin "exiling" such "cowards" from the Republican Party. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall (D), who opposed the bill, tweeted, "I'm at a loss ... I'm ashamed at the way some of our state's leaders are playing politics with children's lives."

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) vetoed a similar bill on Monday, claiming to see "no evidence" of "an existing problem in K-12 sports in Indiana that requires further state government intervention."

The Utah bill initially passed without supermajorities in either chamber, but 10 Republicans in the House and five in the Senate who initially voted against the bill supported it this time, providing the votes necessary to override Cox's veto, according to NPR.

The law is set to take effect on July 1.

Explore More
Grayson Quay

Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-GazetteModern AgeThe American ConservativeThe Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.