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Letter: Mike Schultz says it’s common sense that minors shouldn’t be transitioning. Lots of travesties were once passed off as common sense.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, during a special session at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025.

“Common sense is common sense. I don’t need a report, one way or the other, to tell me that. I just firmly believe that minors should not be transitioning.”

Utah Speaker of the House Mike Schultz said the above in response to the report from the University of Utah telling the Legislature that laws preventing gender affirming care “cannot be justified based on the quantity or quality of medical science findings or concerns about potential regret in the future.”

In 2023, the Utah Legislature commissioned a study to review evidence to inform future policies related to gender affirming care. The study did not have the results the Legislature expected and is now being brushed aside and replaced with “common sense.”

Speaker Schultz, what else has been justified as “common sense” in the past? Let me identify a few examples:

  • The eviction of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including your ancestors, from their land, lives and property in New York, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and in other places throughout the world.
  • Slavery and, later, segregation.
  • Manifest destiny and the genocide of native peoples.
  • Appointing a king as the father and rightful leader of a kingdom.
  • Beating a wayward child.
  • Smoking as a weight loss strategy.
  • Bloodletting to rid your body of disease.
  • History and science has disproven the efficacy of all of the above ideas; ethically, politically, developmentally and medically. Science should be trusted above “common sense” or your “common sense” will become tomorrow’s travesty.

    Sven Larson, Orem

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