Wyoming enacted SF0077 barring state and local government from requiring employees to use colleagues' preferred pronouns

On Feb. 27, 2025, Wyoming Senate File 77, titled "Compelled speech is not free speech," became law after Gov. Mark Gordon allowed it to take effect without his signature, entering the books as Chapter 62 of the 2025 Session Laws of Wyoming. Sponsored by Sen. Tim Hutchings, the measure creates a new statute, W.S. 9-14-601, prohibiting the state and its political subdivisions — including counties and public schools — from requiring any employee to refer to another employee by that employee's preferred pronouns as a condition of employment, contracting, a grant, loan, permit, license, or other benefit, or under threat of adverse action. It also authorizes a private civil right of action for injunctive and declaratory relief and takes effect July 1, 2025.

The bill passed the Senate 27-3 and the House 54-7, majorities large enough to become law without the governor's signature. In a letter explaining his decision not to sign, Gordon questioned "what value a vastly expanded legal code will provide in knowing how to address one another" and warned against "using long term statutory changes as a vehicle to communicate current political opinions," while acknowledging that the bill had passed both chambers with an overwhelming margin.

SF0077 is part of a wave of state laws immunizing or requiring refusal to use transgender people's chosen names and pronouns, structurally similar to Montana's HB400 and Tennessee's pronoun-refusal statutes. By writing into law that no public employer may ever require employees to use a colleague's pronouns, Wyoming removes a workplace protection against deliberate misgendering from transgender state and local government workers, a group defined by a protected characteristic.