New bill bans adult-led discussion on sexual orientation, gender identity for Utah’s K-3 students

Stenquist said he wanted to run HB550 after a woman in his district came to him about an educator discussing topics with her child in school “that she felt were a little inappropriate.” He later brought it to legislative drafters.

“They said [Utah] doesn’t really have this spelled out, they did say well there is language that Florida used, they mentioned that, but I didn’t say ‘let’s do what Florida did,’ that was never my intention.”

Equality Utah’s response

Equality Utah called the bill “worrisome and unnecessary.”

“It appears Rep. Stenquist has copy and pasted Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill,” Equality Utah Executive Director Troy Williams said. “Utah schools don’t teach sexual orientation or gender identity in K-3. Also, the Utah legislature already overturned a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law in 2017 with a near unanimous vote.”

He added, “the only purpose this bill will accomplish is to inflame the culture wars with another exhaustive attack on LGBTQ children.”

Stenquist said the purpose of HB550 is to “give educators guidelines” around sensitive topics.

“When there are topics discussed in schools of sexuality [or] gender identity, things like that, that it simply be age appropriate discussion. That’s really the essence of the bill.”

It’s not clear if the bill will even be heard in the legislature. As of Thursday afternoon it had yet to be assigned to a committee.