After reviewing five transgender bathroom ban complaints that “might reflect a good-faith effort to attempt to make plausible allegations,” the Utah auditor’s office was “unable to substantiate” four of the complaints. The last complaint is still under review.
Utah Auditor John Dougall also reviewed the “privacy compliance plan” of four separate government entities that oversee the buildings where the unsubstantiated claims allegedly took place.
His office urged the Provo School District to finalize its drafted plan and Duchesne County to adopt a plan within the next 30 days.
Both the Alpine School District and North Sevier Recreation Center had plans in place that appear to comply with statute, the office determined.
Passed during the first two weeks of this year’s legislative session, Morgan Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland’s “Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying and Women’s Opportunities,” or HB257, changes the legal definitions of “female” and “male” to categorize Utahns by the reproductive organs of their birth and restricts which bathrooms and locker rooms trans people can use in government-owned buildings.
It also mandates that auditor’s office “establish a process to receive and investigate alleged violations of this chapter by a government entity.” A reporting form launched online just over a month ago.
The auditor’s office has previously emphasized that it only assesses government agencies’ compliance with the law, not whether members of the public are following its restrictions.
“We will not investigate allegations about an individual’s bathroom use, and we will not investigate or determine an individual’s sex or gender,” Dougall wrote in an earlier statement.
In the weeks since the auditor’s reporting form went live, it has received more than 12,000 hoax complaints. Some of the reports published by the auditor’s office include song lyrics and jokes that people were “flaunting their transness all over the bathroom.”
Dougall, who is not running for reelection and is instead competing to replace U.S. Rep. John Curtis in the 3rd Congressional District, has repeatedly criticized the Utah Legislature’s process in passing the law, calling lawmakers “invasive and overly aggressive.” In a statement last month, Dougall said the body “too often fails to seek input from those most affected,” adding that it didn’t consult him before making him “bathroom monitor.”
The congressional candidate has posted numerous videos filmed in bathrooms to his campaign account on X, using them to take jabs at HB257.
“We have a piece of legislation that the sponsor doesn’t seem to actually understand,” Dougall says in the video, his voice echoing in the small space. “She implied that I didn’t care about women’s safety in bathrooms — nothing could be further from the truth. And if this bill were actually about making girls safer, don’t we think that the Legislature could actually spend some money retrofitting bathrooms and providing greater privacy and further safety?”
Dougall continues, “Instead, it looks like this piece of the bill was really more about show than substance. But it wouldn’t be the first time the Legislature did something like that, would it?”
Birkeland has also taken to social media to address her bill’s implementation, denouncing Dougall’s comments.
“The joke is on these activists,” Birkeland wrote about the thousands of bogus complaints on X. “While they waste their time, Utah will continue to protect girls and women. And I look forward to working with our next state auditor, because I know that he will take the role of protecting women seriously.”
Opponents said during legislative debates that privacy concerns raised against transgender people’s bathroom use were invalid, and that the law would ultimately lead to more discrimination and violence against the LGBTQ+ community.
In response to doubts raised about the bill’s motive, which Birkeland has said is to protect women and children, the Senate sponsor read off a list of sexual abuse cases in bathrooms while presenting HB257 on the Senate floor.
The Salt Lake Tribune reviewed each of those cases and could not find any indication that any of the alleged perpetrators were transgender. Some of the attacks happened in single-occupancy bathrooms, one was a same-gender assault and a woman was charged with felony and false testimony for lying about one of the incidents.
Statistically, trans people are four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violence, and half will be sexually abused at some point in their lives, studies show
This is the third consecutive year the Utah Legislature has passed laws imposing restrictions on transgender people.
Meanwhile, data published by the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification indicates “Anti-Gender Non Conforming” hate crimes have gone up in recent years. That database reports four hate crimes in 2021, nine in 2022 and nine in 2023. Hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community overall rose 256% last year, according to BCI, from 36 in 2022 to 92 in 2023.
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