A mother whom Campus Reform previously interviewed regarding her daughter being made to share a dormitory with a male Resident Assistant (RA) at Utah State University has been invited to speak to the Utah State Legislature about her experience, and about a bill protecting women’s dormitories.
Cheryl Saltzman previously expressed her outrage when a “biological male (trans with she/her pronouns) just moved into [her] daughter’s dorm (Merrill hall) on Utah State university’s campus.” Though her daughter was eventually allowed to relocate to another dormitory, Saltzman remains worried about the “zero consideration for the comfort of and privacy of the girls” shown by the school, as she related to Campus Reform, and her story has garnered national attention.
In a new interview with Campus Reform, Saltzman related how her case received attention from Utah state legislators. Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz called her to discuss what happened to her daughter, and a state senator invited her to the legislature to speak about the incident on Jan. 23, where she also expressed her thoughts on new legislation about the issue.
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The bill in question is H.B. 269, which was introduced on Tuesday and deals with “Privacy Protections in Sex-designated Areas.” The legislation is sponsored by State Rep. Stephanie Gricius and State Sen. Brady Brammer, and would require public institutions of higher education to “comply with sex designations in assigning students to dwelling units within the institution’s sex-designated student housing.”
Saltzman criticized aspects of the initial version of the bill, telling Campus Reform that it “1) Allows a man to live in a woman’s dwelling unit (dorm) if (a) he has an amended birth certificate AND (b) he has had a primary sex characteristic surgical procedure, or (c) if he is intersex.”
“I have a problem with all of the above. This is very disappointing and I really hope that they can fix this,” she added.
She also clarified that the initial version of the legislation “need[ed] some tweaks,” adding that “a man cannot become a woman. And you cannot mutilate yourself into being a woman, and women should have the choice when, if, and how they decide to live with a man. And these college campuses, they can just insert a man into a women’s living space with zero consent. . . . so with this new bill, I’m not sure that it goes far enough. . . . changing your ID to female doesn’t make you a woman. . . . and women deserve and should have the right to not live with a man, and that needs to be protected.”
On Thursday, an updated substitute version of the bill was proposed by the bill’s original sponsor, Representative Gricius. Brammer told Campus Reform that the “major difference” is that the updated legislation would no longer allow “an individual that has completed bottom surgery [to] stay in housing that does not match their birth sex.”
Gayle Ruzicka, a member of the Utah Eagle Forum, stated to Campus Reform that with the amended changes, “Utah Eagle Forum now supports the bill. This bill is necessary to protect Utah students.” Utah Eagle Forum is a conservative organization that states on its website that it believes “government exists solely to protect the people’s God-given rights.”
Saltzman also expressed her approval of the updated legislation, saying she “appreciate[s] that they tightened it up with the amended version and made it clear that girls deserve protected female spaces.”
Bill sponsor Gricius said in a statement to Campus Reform that “H.B. 269 is common-sense legislation that will enhance privacy for students residing in on-campus housing at public universities.”
“Universities may designate gender-neutral living arrangements for students who do not want to live in sex-segregated spaces,” the statement reads. “These clear guidelines and options for on-campus housing will ensure comfort and privacy for all students.”
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Campus Reform also spoke to Democratic Utah State Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost about the bill. Dailey-Provost is critical of the legislation, saying that, “I actually went to school at Utah State after I graduated from high school, and I had issues in my dorm as well, and it had nothing to do with anybody who was transgender, and it was an inconvenience and it upset a lot of my situation, but I changed dorms and I dealt with it.”
She added that the bill “I think in the end, the people that are gonna be harmed the most are transgender individuals, particularly if a transgender female is forced to live in a dorm with male and male identifying individuals.”
Gricius, however, sees her bill as protecting students who do not want to be forced to share dormitories with members of the opposite sex.
“It’s not fair to students to create an expectation of privacy in a sex-segregated dorm or apartment, then assign them to live with someone who shares their gender identity but whose biology matches the opposite sex,” she said.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
