Government regulations and sexual health were hot topics at Thursday's legislative town hall. While many Cache County lawmakers expressed support for H.B. 92 during the meeting, the bill failed to pass out of committee on Friday and was sent back to the rules commitee.
H.B. 92, which is now unlikely to be considred by the body of the Utah House this year, would have prohibited a physician or surgeon from performing a transgender procedure on a minor.
Rep. Casey Snider said it’s a difficult issue and worried prohibiting the procedure now could ead to allowing these procedures if Democratic leaders were elected.
“I don't want to see permanent life altering surgeries occur in children," Snider said. "I think that I think we can all agree that there's some real problems with that. But at the same time, I also don't want the government mandating that fundamental relationship between a parent, their child and their doctor and so I think we've got to really watch this debate play itself out."
Rep. Mike Peterson supported the bill as well.
“I've done quite a bit of reading and looking at this, and I have talked with folks in this community," Peterson said. "This is tough in that our own party platform talks about the responsibility of parents. We do draw some lines. And for me, I think this was beyond that line. And because it is a permanent. And I've actually signed to be a co-sponsor on this bill."
Another bill that was discussed during Thursday’s town hall was H. B. 177, which would to mandate discussion of sexual assault and consent in school. The bill passed by committee 6-5 on Tuesday so it will move to the floor.
Rep. Dan Johnson and Peterson oppose this bill. Johnson said two years ago the state education department just went through a lengthy process developing the current curriculum.
“I think it gets back to this thing that moms and dads get to choose," Johnson said. "We haven't even had a chance to look at the implementation of those standards and gather data on them before we're going to change it again. And those are the reasons I voted against it. And this was vetted by moms and dads all across the state educators all up and down the state."