In the face of several state legislatures moving to prohibit transgender athletes from competing alongside women and girls, Utah Governor Spencer Cox took a stand against a 2022 bill approved by lawmakers in Salt Lake City.

Cox, a member of the Republican party, didn’t oppose regulating school sports outright, but criticized legislators for hastily implementing major amendments. In a widely shared veto statement, he expressed concern for transgender youths, emphasizing that they were not disrupting women’s sports within Utah’s schools.

At that point, Cox highlighted that out of 75,000 student athletes in Utah, only four were transgender athletes participating in sports, with just one engaged in girls’ teams. He stated these individuals were “four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something… four kids trying to get through each day.”

“Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live,” Cox remarked.

Utah governor has long urged ‘Disagree Better’

Despite lawmakers overriding his veto on House Bill 11, Cox, seen as a moderate conservative in the GOP, was lauded by transgender advocates for his compassionate stance during a contentious period. He later assumed the role of 2023-24 chair for the National Governors Association, promoting the message, “Disagree Better.”

“It’s not about learning how to disagree better, it’s about remembering how to disagree better,” Cox stated in 2023. “Our nation was founded on this, it was torn apart in the 1850s and the 1860s in a civil war, and we are headed in that direction if we don’t all remember what it is that made our country great, and we all start acting like it.”

“There’s nothing more un-American than hating our fellow Americans,” added Cox.

The second-term governor’s profile rose significantly last week, following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University. Cox was among officials who quickly labeled it a political assassination, though authorities have not laid out the motives of alleged sniper Tyler Robinson.

Spencer Cox: US must find ‘off ramp’ from political violence

Cox, appearing at a series of news conferences, condemned Kirk’s murder as an attack on democracy and urged Americans to reject political violence.

“At some point we have to find an off ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse,” he said.

Over the weekend, Cox told NBC the suspect in Kirk’s killing was not cooperating with investigators. Authorities instead were aided by information from cooperating family members and Robinson’s roommate, whom Cox described as a boyfriend transitioning from male to female, to understand what happened.

“The why behind this, again, we’re all drawing lots of conclusions and how someone like this could be radicalized,” Cox said of Robinson. “And I think that those are important questions for us to ask and important questions for us to answer.”

Cox has called for the death penalty in the case. Formal charges against Robinson are expected Tuesday.