Utah’s Republican-controlled House voted Friday to pass a sweeping proposal to keep transgender people out of restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity in taxpayer-funded buildings, sending the measure to the state’s majority GOP Senate for consideration just three days after the start of the session.
House Bill 257 aims to prohibit individuals from using gender-designated facilities that differ from their sex assigned at birth in government buildings, correctional facilities and domestic violence shelters unless they have undergone a transition-related surgery and legally amended the sex on their birth certificate.
The proposal would require new government buildings to include single-occupant restrooms and changing rooms while existing ones must be studied to assess “the feasibility of retrofitting or remodeling” facilities to improve privacy.
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The bill, if passed, would make Utah the third state to adopt explicit restrictions on transgender bathroom use in buildings other than schools. A Florida law passed last year prevents transgender people from using facilities consistent with their gender identity in all government-owned buildings, and a North Dakota law restricts bathroom use in correctional facilities.
Everyone involved in passing this law should be barred from working in government. We’re facing an existential crisis from climate change, an ongoing gun violence crisis, mounting wealth inequality, rising right wing extremism that’s already reached coup levels, and more, and this is what they’re spending time on?
At least three republicans have some tattered remains of a soul, maybe.
Let me take this time to remind all of you that Jury Nullification is an unavoidable part of our legal process. If you’re on the jury, you can give any verdict you want. You don’t have to show your work! So that means you can say “Not Guilty” for any old reason.
Now, this can be used for Evil, like a southern jury not convicting a white man for murdering a black man. But it can also be used for good! You can nullify laws that are unjust. If someone is being charged for marijuana crimes, for an unrelated example, you can just say Not Guilty. They can’t do anything to you.
So go forth and nullify, friends, any and all unjust laws. Tell your friends.
Do it.
But be quiet about it. Talking about it in the courthouse can get you thrown off the jury or into a bunch of legal bullshit.