A former Republican candidate for Salt Lake County clerk and the Utah Legislature says in a lawsuit filed this week that he lost his job over social media posts attacking Equality Utah, the state’s most politically active LGBTQ+ advocacy organization.
Now he’s suing the nonprofit and its leader for sharing comments he’d made online with his previous boss.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Utah’s 3rd District Court, Goud Maragani claims Equality Utah and its executive director, Troy Williams, “knowingly and recklessly portrayed Mr. Maragani in a false light to his employer through highly offensive statements, which caused such offense that his ... employer terminated him, leaving him with no job and a besmirched reputation in his legal career.”
Goud Maragani, who earlier this year campaigned and lost a run for the Republican nomination in state House District 48, has repeatedly made derogatory comments about transgender people and has spread misinformation about them while pushing for restrictions on gender-affirming health care and the transgender community’s bathroom access.
Equality Utah has advocated against, and for adjustments to, such policy proposals. As a county clerk candidate, Maragani, who is gay, previously sought the LGBTQ+ advocacy group’s support. As a member of the Utah Republican Party’s State Central Committee, he later tried to censure Republican Salt Lake County Council member Aimee Winder Newton for attending an Equality Utah fundraiser and seeking the organization’s endorsement.
Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Goud Maragani, running for Salt Lake County clerk, gets three minutes to address the delegates before they cast their vote at the Salt Lake County Republican convention at Kearns High School on Saturday, April 9, 2022.
The ex-GOP candidate is represented, in part, by attorneys with America First Legal Foundation — a self-described right-wing nonprofit led by Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to President Donald Trump. The 3-year-old organization’s key purpose is to challenge policies enacted by President Joe Biden’s administration.
In addition to lobbying on behalf of LGBTQ+ Utahns at the Capitol, Equality Utah offers diversity training for local businesses. Lucid Software, a Utah-based company valued at $3 billion where Maragani previously worked in its legal and compliance department, partnered with Equality Utah to offer that instruction, according to the complaint.
Maragani currently heads the Utah Gay-Straight Coalition, and previously led the now-dissolved Utah chapter of Log Cabin Republicans — a national organization of LGBTQ+ members of the Republican Party. His remarks, often from the social media accounts of those organizations, have included direct jabs at Equality Utah, its employees and volunteers.
A screenshot of a post made in July 2023 on Maragani’s personal account — one Maragani’s attorneys included in the filing to demonstrate his disagreements with the organization — includes a photo of Williams speaking in front of Gov. Spencer Cox and legislative leaders, and reads, “Have you noticed [Troy Williams and Equality Utah] are quiet on the issue of men in women’s locker rooms? Cat got their tongue or is Troy too busy applying his #mascara and glitter, getting ready for another ‘exclusive’ at the gov’s mansion?”
Williams declined to comment on the case, and Maragani did not respond to an email from The Salt Lake Tribune sent Friday morning.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, during a hearing on HB302, a controversial bill on transgender athletics, by the Senate Health and Human Services Standing Committee at the state Capitol in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021.
In an August 2023 email to an executive overseeing people and culture at Lucid Software — attached to Maragani’s complaint — Williams said, “I’m writing out of concern from a member of the Lucid team who has been engaging in disturbing behavior toward us. Goud Maragani is demonstrating a bizarre and disturbing obsession with me and our Equality Utah team.” Williams expressed concern for the safety of a transgender leader at Equality Utah who was scheduled to conduct a training event at the company that month.
Screenshots of Maragani’s posts sent with the initial email were not included in the complaint.
“Is Lucid going to be a safe environment for her? Can we jump on a call this week and talk through this? This is just a small sample of the bile that Gould [sic] regularly posts,” Williams wrote last August, continuing, “I’m very worried that his extreme transphobic rhetoric may also endanger transgender people throughout the state.”
Maragani’s complaint did include screenshots attached to a follow-up email sent in September, in which Williams wrote that “Goud is escalating his attacks.”
In one thread from what was previously a Utah Log Cabin Republicans account, Maragani posted a picture of a woman on Equality Utah’s Transgender Advisory Council and said, “The ‘woman’ on the left is a biological man. Leave it to liberal white ladies to give him an award when his main accomplishment is trying to #erasewomen.”
Another screenshot showed him criticizing a Democratic state senator for her views on transgender rights. He described Salt Lake City Sen. Jennifer Plumb, a pediatric emergency physician whose daughter is transgender, as “promoting the sterilization/mutilation of children,” and characterized her daughter as a child who was “born male & now identifies as your daughter.”
“I am not asking you to fire him,” Williams said in the September email. “I’m just making you aware of his ongoing actions. I’m also talking with the national Log Cabin Republicans tomorrow.”
The national organization subsequently disbanded its Utah chapter in October, saying one of the state affiliate’s executive board members had repeatedly violated its guidelines and standards, QSaltLake Magazine reported.
Lucid notified Maragani that his employment “was being (allegedly) terminated for performance” two weeks after Williams’ email and that his position would not be re-filled, according to the complaint. The news came as Lucid was laying off dozens of its employees.
“As stated in Mr. Maragani’s complaint, Lucid can confirm his termination was performance-related,” the company told The Tribune
Maragani alleges the action came as a result of Williams’ complaints, and that Williams “falsely connects tweets ... to ‘hate crimes’ in Utah.”
He also protested comments Williams made on social media about him in the filing, noting Williams made statements labeling Maragani “a ‘troll,’ ‘not well,’ and ‘such a [expletive],’ as well as analogizing him to ‘Gout inflammation.’”
If the court rules in his favor, the former candidate is asking a judge to require the donor-funded nonprofit to pay him a minimum of $300,000 for how the emails and posts allegedly impacted his reputation and his financial and emotional well-being.
According to the most recent reports submitted to the IRS and posted by ProPublica, Equality Utah’s revenue in 2022 was $272,000, and its net income $17,000. Its foundation collected $1.63 million, and made a profit of $323,000 that year.