On October 21, 2016, Equality Utah and three students, represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP, filed a federal lawsuit challenging state laws that ban positive speech about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Utah public schools. The lawsuit‚ the first of its kind in the country to challenge such state laws‚ alleged that the laws violated the U.S. Constitution and federal education law by discriminating against...
Our Voices
Three same-sex couples filed a federal lawsuit challenging Utah’s laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to respect the legal marriages of same-sex couples who married in other states. The lawsuit argued that Utah’s laws barring same-sex couples from marrying and prohibiting the state from respecting the marriages of same-sex couples who married in other states violated the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process. On...
Despite her spotless employment record, Krystal Etsitty, a transgender woman, was fired from her job as a public bus driver by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA), solely because the UTA feared that members of the public might be offended by Etsitty’s transgender identity. A federal district court in Utah dismissed Etsitty’s case, holding that federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination do not protect transgender people. Etsitty appealed this decision to the Tenth Circuit Court of...
In a decision issued on February 16, 2007, the Utah Supreme Court reversed three decades of Utah case law holding that courts may protect children’s relationships with non-biological parents. Keri Jones and Cheryl Barlow had a child together in Utah using alternative insemination. After they separated, Barlow tried to keep Jones from having any contact with their child. In 2004, a Utah trial court granted Jones visitation. Barlow, who is represented by an anti-gay legal organization,...