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SL Cty Council: conversion therapy ‘should not happen in Utah’ The Republican-heavy Salt Lake County Council passed a resolution June 25 with complete support of all members on the council agreeing conversion therapy is a practice that should not happen in Utah. The vote was unanimous to urge lawmakers to revive and pass a law that would have prohibited therapy attempting Arlyn Bradshaw to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBT minors. Utah would have been the 16th state
to ban conversion therapy, but this year’s bill fizzled after lawmakers altered it to include language that LGBT advocates believed would not stop conversion therapy. It never reached a vote on the House floor. “When so-called conversion therapy fails to work, Utahns told us of their feelings of despair,” Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, told the council before the vote. “They felt that they had failed their therapist, failed their church, failed their families and maybe even failed their God. That sense of failure and the lack of self worth, that’s the danger.” County Councilman Arlyn Bradshaw, who co-sponsored the resolution, said he finds the issue deeply personal. He was 17 years old when he moved to
UofU grad students priced out of getting HIV preventative medicine University of Utah graduate students who take advantage of the school’s health insurance benefit are basically priced out of receiving HIV preventative medication, or PrEP. The UofU provides health insurance to all students who qualify for graduate tuition benefit. Under this plan, there is no upfront prescription coverage, which means that any prescriptions must be paid out of pocket first, with the opportunity for a 50 percent reimbursement from their insurance provider. As a result of this policy, students who are in need of access to PrEP must pay $1,800 upfront before submitting for reimbursement, which is only $900 of that cost. On average, graduate students at the UofU take home about $1,400 per month. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City is now over $1,000 a month. When considering the other costs of living, including food, taxes, transportation, and any other out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, it is clear that paying for PrEP is only feasible for graduate students when crucial sacrifices are made. The University of Utah Department of Health’s Free HIV PrEP Clinic cannot
offer the graduate students access, since only uninsured people quality. PrEP manufacturer Gilead’s program that picks up what an insured person pays out of pocket for the drug over and above what their insurance pays also cannot be used, since students must pay out of pocket for their prescriptions, and charges for PrEP are billed as “uninsured.” In short, graduate students at the University of Utah are unable to get or afford the potentially life-saving drug. A petition was launched that asks administrators at the University of Utah to pursue one of two actions to address the problem and ensure that graduate students can access this life-saving medication: Renegotiate graduate student insurance contracts to include prescription coverage upfront; or allow graduate students insured under the University of Utah health plan to access services and medications from the free PrEP clinic at the University of Utah. The petition was started by Univeristy of Utah graduate teaching assistants Devon Cantwell and Rebecca Hardenbrook. For more infomation on the petition, it can be found at bit.ly/ugradsprep. Q
Issue 302 | JULY 18, 2019
Utah in the late 1990s, and was coming to terms with his sexuality when he was asked if he wanted “therapy for my sexual orientation.” “Not in a malicious way, but [the person thought] perhaps it could help me with what I was dealing with,” he told his colleagues on the council. “And I made the decision to turn down that offer. And to my family’s credit, I was not forced into anything at that time in my life. I often wonder how maybe my life would be different if I had undergone that.” However, on a bright note, under Bradshaw’s recommendation, the council voted to develop a Youth Suicide Prevention Task Force in Salt Lake County. More than a dozen states have banned certain counselors from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of minors, and supporters of the legislation in Utah have framed a legal change as a potentially life-saving move. Q
LGBT entries marched in Freedom Festival Parade The Provo Freedom Festival routinely rejected any entries from LGBT groupos to march in the July 4 parade, however this year the applicants sailed throughw without any strife or fanfare. Last year the group issued a nondiscrimination policy that included sexual orientation (yet excluded gender identity), and then immediately denied several LGBTQ organizations from marching in the annual parade. Then in an astonishing last-minute turn of events that included the threat of retraction of festival funding, five LGBT groups marched in last year’s parade. This year, four of those groups were accepted to march in either the parade or pre-parade. Mormons Building Bridges co-founder Erika Munson told the Daily Herald that she had some concern that there could still be some discomfort on the part of parade organizers with LGBT entries this year. However, when everything was approved without a hitch this year, all she felt was relief. “I don’t want last-minute press conferences and tense meetings,” Munson said. I can do without that, thank you very much.” Q
