Back when a Utah school banned the word "queer"
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The Salt Lake Tribune, June 3, 2004. Image via Utah Digital Newspapers, the University of Utah
Utah has had its share of scuttlebutts over school dress codes, LGBTQ+ support and public health messaging for youth.
- Twenty years ago, all three collided in one big clampdown.
What drove the news: The state health department withdrew a $100,000 grant for an antismoking campaign by the GLBT Community Center of Utah — over a T-shirt, the center alleged.
Catch up quick: The center circulated T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Queers Kick Ash."
- Officials at a Midvale high school suspended four students who wore them to class, saying the shirts violated the dress code: the "kick ash" pun was deemed vulgar and an image of a snuffed-out cigarette butt amounted to a "likeness of tobacco."
The intrigue: The principal also said the word "queer" was off-limits because it was seen as a slur by some, and that could encourage harassment.
Reality check: While purporting to save LGBTQ+ students from their own terminology, the principal also threatened to disband the school's gay-straight alliance, calling the group "disruptive."
The big picture: By 2004, the word "queer" was widely seen as a "positive term of self-identification," the ACLU of Utah argued.
Yes, but: That didn't placate the health department, which withdrew funding for the center's campaign a couple of weeks later.
Stunning stat: At the time, smoking rates were extremely high among young LGBTQ+ adults — about 65%, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
State of play: Utah still sometimes clutches its pearls over public health campaigns.
Flashback: In 2020, then-Gov. Gary Herbert ordered the state health department to stop circulating condoms branded with Utah-themed phrases like "Greatest Sex on Earth," "SL,UT," and a road sign with the distances to Fillmore and Beaver.
- Health officials scrambled to recover about 40,000 condoms they'd already distributed. Some that stayed in circulation appeared on eBay, priced at hundreds of dollars.