SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (ABC4) – TIME Magazine has recognized Utah Governor Spencer Cox as one of 100 emerging stars in 2022. 

In the TIME100 Next annual list, TIME Magazine recognizes 100 “rising stars” from across industries around the world. These 100 impactful people are artists, leaders, innovators, advocates, and phenoms. Gov. Cox joins 19 others as an emerging leader of our time.

“What unites these individuals are their extraordinary efforts to shape our world – and to define our future,” TIME writes. 

According to TIME’s website, there is no one way it measures the influence essential to be selected as there is no one way to have an impact. The list is then curated by TIME’s journalists, informed by their reporting over the year.

TIME looks towards Cox’s stance on including the LGBTQ+ community by bringing advocates to the table. Earlier in the year, the Utah State Legislature passed a bill to ban transgender students from competing in sports in school. It was a move that Gov. Cox opposed.

Cox used his power as Governor to veto the bill, which he publicly stated he would, despite knowing that his veto would most likely be overturned by both chambers of the Utah legislature. 

“If you have not spent time with transgender youth, then I would encourage you to pause on this issue,” Gov. Cox said about the bill in February 2021. “We have so many people who are in a very difficult spot right now. And we have very few if any transgender girls participating in sports.”

TIME wrote in its post about Cox “in an age when the easy path to political popularity is to constantly throw out red meat to the base, Cox has taken a pointedly different approach.” TIME notes Cox saying he is trying to chip away at the polarization and division in politics. 

“I’m really worried about the future of our country and our ability to keep it all together,” Cox is quoted as saying in TIME. “I still believe in the exhausted majority, and I hope they’ll wake up.” 

Governor Cox was elected to Utah’s governor position during the 2020 election year and assumed office on Jan. 4, 2021.