Equality for all? Not in Utah.

Just two weeks before Ariana Losco became the first openly transgender person to speak to the Utah State Legislature, she was fired from her job. Her task on January 25 was to tell the conservative state’s legislators why Utah’s transgender workers needed protections against employment discrimination. The rights denied her under Utah’s law allowed her employer the legal upper hand in firing her without just cause.

Losco spoke on behalf of Equality Utah about House Bill 89, which would amend the current anti-discrimination law -- which now protects against discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, sex, age, and disability -- to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

”You have to pass House Bill 89,” she told the Legislature. “The gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community of Utah is suffering needlessly without it.”

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