Utah enacted S.B. 74 barring people in state custody from legal name and birth-certificate sex-designation changes

On March 25, 2025, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 74, "Corrections Modifications," into law. The measure was sponsored by State Senator Derrin R. Owens as chief sponsor and carried in the House by Representative Melissa G. Ballard, and it was enacted by the Utah State Legislature as part of an omnibus corrections bill.

Among its provisions, S.B. 74 restricts legal gender recognition for people under state correctional authority. It amends Utah Code to prohibit an individual in the custody of the Department of Corrections from filing a district-court petition to legally change their name. It also broadens the class of people barred from obtaining a court-ordered sex-designation (gender-marker) change on a birth certificate: where prior law reached those "on probation or parole," the amended statute extends the bar to any "offender" as defined in Section 64-13-1.

The practical effect of these provisions is to deny incarcerated and supervised transgender people the ability to change their legal name or to correct the gender marker on their birth certificate while they remain within the correctional system.