Few Utahns have witnessed the effects of withdrawing transgender kids\u2019 access to care as Collin Kuhn, a clinical child and adolescent psychologist who specializes in helping their clients navigate challenges and questions related to gender.<\/p>\n
The difference between receiving care and not receiving care, they said, is \u201cnight and day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden, socially, their world opens up,\u201d Kuhn said of transgender clients after they start hormone therapy \u2014 treatment that, Kuhn added, doesn\u2019t start until the client has met with them or another mental health professional for a year or longer. \u201cThey\u2019re not just isolating and sitting in their rooms behind a screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kuhn, who has traversed their own yearslong journey of coming out as nonbinary and transmasculine, then receiving care they described as lifesaving to transition to a body they feel comfortable in, said they have about five dozen clients, most of whom are in their teens or early twenties.<\/p>\n
But in 2023, Utah lawmakers passed what they referred to as a \u201cmoratorium\u201d on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, then-state Sen. Mike Kennedy\u2019s SB16. The bill\u2019s GOP proponents, at the time, repeatedly insisted they were concerned for minors\u2019 health and safety. So as part of the law, the Legislature commissioned an in-depth review of all research into the effects of hormone treatments.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, a physician who is now a congressman, did not respond to a request for comment on the evidence review\u2019s findings and its reception among lawmakers. <\/p>\n
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dr. Collin Kuhn, a therapist who works with transgender kids, sits in her office in Salt Lake City on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.\n<\/p>\n
As the Republican supermajority now moves toward permanently banning such care in Utah, lawmakers continue to sidestep public dialogue about the results of that research \u2014 which concluded that gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria is largely found to result in positive outcomes and reduce the likelihood of suicide. <\/p>\n
Records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune indicate legislative staff aiding the Health and Human Services Interim Committee initially planned on lawmakers discussing the review\u2019s findings after the report\u2019s delivery last May.<\/p>\n
In a statement to The Tribune, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said, \u201cSpeaker Schultz has been clear in his view that minors should not be subject to irreversible medical decisions.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cKids should not be transitioning. Period. End of story. Minors should not be transitioning. Period. End of story,\u201d Schultz told Deseret News earlier this month.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, declined to comment and pointed to remarks Adams made while speaking with reporters on the first day of the session, in which he said senators will weigh the House proposal to permanently ban care when it arrives in their chamber.<\/p>\n
The move to push for a permanent ban coincides with repeated efforts by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to completely cut off transgender youth\u2019s access to gender-affirming care. Most recently, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatened to withhold federal funds<\/a> from health facilities that provide gender-affirming care to minors.<\/p>\n Over the course of its six public hearings held across several months last year, the chairs of the Health and Human Services Committee never included a presentation or discussion of the Legislature-ordered report in an agenda. Links to the University of Utah\u2019s Drug Regimen Review Center\u2019s work and a subsequent report offering recommendations for possible policy changes by the state\u2019s Department of Health and Human Services were instead tucked into a May meeting outline<\/a>. <\/p>\n There was no explicit reference to the documents in the May 21 hearing \u2014 two days after the research was delivered to legislators<\/a> \u2014 only comments from a policy analyst notifying the public that reports legally required to be submitted to the Legislature are posted on the committee\u2019s website. Lawmakers did not publicly acknowledge the documents until The Tribune reported on them<\/a> the next day.<\/p>\n A draft \u201c2025 HHS Interim Study Map\u201d compiled by a legislative policy analyst, and obtained by The Tribune through a Government Records Access and Management Act request, included a list of topics to be discussed over the next year. Below that was a tentative agenda for the committee\u2019s May meeting, with 20 minutes allotted for the \u201cTransgender report\u201d and DHHS listed as a possible presenter. <\/p>\n Staffers emailed that document to lawmakers chairing the committee, Sen. Keith Grover, R-Provo, and Rep. Bridger Bolinder, R-Grantsville, on April 18. Rep. Katy Hall, R-South Ogden, replaced Bolinder as the House chair ahead of the committee\u2019s August meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease review this document at your earliest convenience and let us know if you would like to make any changes at this time,\u201d they wrote in the email. \u201cWe can always modify the list as issues come up throughout interim.\u201d<\/p>\n A fiscal analysis of the 2023 bill estimated taxpayers would spend more than $100,000 on the evidence review. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for DHHS said it would be difficult to calculate the total cost of the research, because it was performed under a broader contract the agency has with the Drug Regimen Review Center. Under an April 2023 contract, the department provided to The Tribune, the center was given a $150,000 budget for the project\u2019s direct expenses.<\/p>\n Neither Grover, Bolinder nor Hall responded to questions sent by The Tribune. <\/p>\n In a joint statement in May, Bolinder and Hall said, \u201cYoung kids and teenagers should not be making life-altering medical decisions based on weak evidence. \u2026 Simply put, the science isn\u2019t there, the risks are real, and the public is with us. We intend to keep the moratorium in place.\u201d<\/p>\n Gov. Spencer Cox said at a June news conference that he felt Utah\u2019s limits on access to gender-affirming care are \u201cprobably in the right place right now,\u201d adding, \u201cThere doesn\u2019t seem to be an appetite to readdress it. I think things have shifted significantly over the past couple years.\u201d <\/p>\n After The Tribune contacted the Drug Regimen Review Center with questions about lawmakers\u2019 responses to its work, a spokesperson for University of Utah Health responded with a statement standing by the findings that hormone treatments are safe and effective for transgender youth with gender dysphoria.<\/p>\n (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and Senate President J. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, in the House Chamber at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026.<\/p>\n \u2018The harm of being six-feet under\u2019<\/p>\n SB16\u2019s so-called moratorium on gender-affirming care for transgender youth prohibited surgically changing a transgender minor\u2019s sex characteristics (such procedures were already extremely rare), and barred prescribing puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy to Utahns under 18 who were not diagnosed with gender dysphoria prior to the bill being signed into law.<\/p>\n Gender-affirming hormone treatments to alleviate mental health challenges like those faced by that client are effective and carry little risk, the experts contracted by the state to conduct the medical evidence review found.<\/p>\n As the Drug Regimen Review Center compiled its thousand-page report, it sifted through 277 studies \u2014 which included more than 28,000 pediatric patients around the world \u2014 that met its standards for consideration.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter having spent many months searching for, reading, and evaluating the available literature, it was impossible for us to avoid drawing some high-level conclusions,\u201d the review says. <\/p>\n \u201cNamely,\u201d they wrote, \u201cthe consensus of the evidence supports that the treatments are effective in terms of mental health, psychosocial outcomes, and the induction of body changes consistent with the affirmed gender in pediatric [gender dysphoria] patients. The evidence also supports that the treatments are safe in terms of changes to bone density, cardiovascular risk factors, metabolic changes, and cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n The pharmacists who read the research and wrote the review added, in their opinion, there is no evidence to justify policies that prevent access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors.<\/p>\n In a more limited analysis of research assessing the long-term effects of hormone treatment which was included at the end of the review, the Drug Regimen Review Center concluded, \u201cOverall, there were positive mental health and psychosocial functioning outcomes. \u2026 Patients that were seen at the gender clinic before the age of 18 had a lower risk of suicide compared to those referred as an adult.\u201d<\/p>\n In the absence of a public hearing or discussion, it\u2019s difficult to know how many state lawmakers have privately read the report they requested and whether they considered its findings ahead of proposing additional bills this year.<\/p>\n Schultz, Kennedy and Hall all reportedly told Deseret News that they agree with an assessment \u201cdebunking\u201d the Drug Regimen Review Center\u2019s conclusions by the conservative lobbying group Do No Harm.<\/p>\n Do No Harm does not disclose the majority of its donors, but according to the most recent returns the group filed with the IRS, in 2024, it received grants from the Christian right-leaning Family Policy Foundation and The Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n Written by two of the organization\u2019s employees, Do No Harm\u2019s report recommended<\/a> lawmakers instead rely on another review published in May by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. <\/p>\n (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, makes a comment during the rules and general oversight committee on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025.
<\/p>\n Among the four Democrats on the 19-member Health and Human Services Interim Committee last year was Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost of Salt Lake City, who also works as a public health researcher and instructor at the University of Utah.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first thought was: I wonder if they\u2019re actually even going to acknowledge this,\u201d Dailey-Provost said of her GOP colleagues, remembering the first time she read the evidence review, \u201cbecause as a researcher, I\u2019ve said a million times, we all love data until it tells a story we don\u2019t want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n Dailey-Provost has voted against every piece of legislation she has seen aimed at restricting transgender Utahns\u2019 rights. But as one of just 14 Democrats in the 75-member House of Representatives, she said in an interview that she struggles with the question of how to best advocate for transgender youth. <\/p>\n (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Transgender rights protesters walk around in the Capitol rotunda on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026.<\/p>\n Lawmakers have passed laws limiting transgender people\u2019s ability to access care for four consecutive years, and the most acute effects of those measures are experienced by young people. Each time one of those bills is weighed, transgender Utahns form lines that often stretch outside the doors of committee rooms to testify on how the proposed policy would make their lives more difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cSay we had heard that [evidence review] as a study item \u2014 20 kids come up and bare their souls and beg for compassion and are told, \u2018No,\u2019\u201d Dailey-Provost said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that is hardest for me, that is most sensitive for me,\u201d she continued, \u201cis that every time we run these bills, these kids \u2014 these vulnerable kids \u2014 hear adults railing against their health care. And it\u2019s important to look at this from a legislative standpoint, but how much do we have to put these kids through this trauma of hearing lawmakers declare that their health care doesn\u2019t matter?\u201d<\/p>\n At least half of the people who see Kuhn, they estimated, are affected by SB16\u2019s restrictions. In the aftermath of the law\u2019s passage, some of Kuhn\u2019s clients\u2019 families decided to move away from Utah, while others are making regular trips out of state to receive care<\/p>\n Because SB16 left some room for minors already receiving gender-affirming care to continue treatment, Kuhn said, \u201cWe do still have a handful of kids that are getting their treatment here.\u201d <\/p>\n Traveling causes parents to miss work, and children to miss school, and part of Kuhn\u2019s job is helping families procure the accommodations necessary from educators to make that possible \u2014 a compromise schools aren\u2019t always willing to make, even when treatment is necessary to address suicidality. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re actually trying to save her life at this moment,\u201d Kuhn said, reflecting on their experience helping one client, \u201cI don\u2019t give a s— if she didn\u2019t do her homework last week. That is not our priority right now.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of Utah\u2019s 2023 Student Health and Risk Prevention survey, approximately a quarter of transgender students polled reported attempting suicide at some point during the previous year. About 61% said they had seriously considered it, compared to 18% of their peers. Utah did not publish information specific to transgender students\u2019 well-being in its 2025 survey report.<\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t get how people can\u2019t see what harm is being done,\u201d Kuhn said. \u201cSomehow they think the harm is if we have hormones \u2014 how about the harm of being six feet under?\u201d <\/p>\n (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dr. Collin Kuhn, a therapist who works with transgender kids, discusses how Utah children and their families are affected by the legislative inaction following the May 2024 release of a Utah legislature-commissioned evidence review on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, at her office in Salt Lake City on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
<\/p>\n \u2018No intention of actually using the data\u2019<\/p>\n Utah\u2019s DHHS declined in its May report following the evidence review to take a position on what lawmakers should do next. It did, however, offer recommendations as to the policies the Legislature should put in place if it were to lift the moratorium.<\/p>\n Those included creating a \u201chormonal transgender treatment board\u201d that would provide care guidelines; limiting providers delivering care to \u201cdemonstrated experts\u201d and requiring that treatment be overseen by an interdisciplinary team of physicians and mental health professionals; and implementing an \u201cexplicit informed consent\u201d process. <\/p>\n