(CN) — A Boise High School student organization and a 12-year-old girl sued Idaho education officials along with the Idaho State Board of Education for enforcing the state’s recent anti-transgender bill barring transgender students from school restrooms and other facilities matching their gender identity as of July 1.
Signed by Republican Idaho Governor Brad Little in March 2023, the state’s Senate Bill 1100 bans Idaho schools from allowing transgender students to use restrooms and changing facilities like locker rooms and shower rooms associated with the gender they identify with.
In challenging the law from taking effect, a 12-year-old transgender student and a Boise High School organization called the Sexuality and Gender Alliance sued the Idaho State Board of Education along with several educational officials, claiming violations of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, Title IX and right to privacy. The plaintiffs, represented by attorney Samuel Linnet of Alturas Law Group, seek a preliminary and permanent injunction.
Unless enjoined by the court, Linnet writes in the complaint that SB 1100 will irreparably harm transgender youth across Idaho, including Rebecca Roe, who is entering seventh grade next year. The harm, Linnet writes, also extends to members of the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, as its transgender student members “stand in harm’s way.”
According to data compiled by the Movement Advancement Project, almost 2% of high school students identify as transgender, representing over 1.3 million trans youth. According to the non-profit, 80% of transgender students reported avoiding bathrooms because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. Meanwhile, 64% of transgender students avoided gym classes because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
Approximately 59% of transgender students, the group says, have been required to use a bathroom that did not match their gender identity.
As written, SB 1100 declares there are “real and inherent physical differences between men and women” and that “every person has a natural right to privacy and safety” in restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms or shower rooms where they may be partially or fully nude in front of others.
Requiring students to share facilities, the bill states, “generates potential embarrassment, shame and physiological injury to students, as well as increasing the likelihood of sexual assault, molestation, rape, voyeurism and exhibitionism.”
However, Linnet argues that SB 1100 is a “solution in search of a problem,” as many schools across Idaho have allowed transgender students to use facilities that match their gender identity for years without incident.
“There is no evidence that these policies and practices have harmed any non-transgender student,” Linnet writes. “Nevertheless, SB 1100 imposes a blanket statewide ban that schools must follow, strips transgender students of equal access to communal facilities and subjects them to profound harm — in the name of protecting non-transgender students from privacy and safety harms that do not exist.”
The bill also places a ‘bounty’ on the transgender students, plaintiffs say, as it allows any student who encounters a “person of the opposite sex” in a restroom or changing facility to sue the school if it allowed the transgender person to use the facility or “failed to take reasonable steps to prohibit that person from using facilities of the opposite sex.”
Reasonable steps, in this case, include the bill’s provision around “reasonable accommodations” for students unwilling or unable to use multi-occupancy designed for the sex at birth on school grounds or at school-sponsored events. Students must make a written request to the public school to be illegible for accommodation — which does not include allowing a student to use a multi-occupancy facility of their choice.
Plaintiffs say that the bill's exclusionary practices will be deeply stigmatizing, impede well-established standards of care for the treatment of gender dysphoria and subject transgender youth to a range of health issues, including anxiety, depression and suicidality.
The country’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, The Human Rights Campaign, agreed last March while slamming lawmakers for passing the bill.
“Every child deserves the chance to learn and grow in a safe and welcoming environment. This bill, however, will make life even harder for transgender kids across Idaho,” the group wrote in a statement. “Transgender youth are already marginalized, and bills like this one result in higher rates of bullying and harassment. Idaho politicians should be focused on addressing real problems by working to raise wages and create jobs instead of demonizing transgender kids trying to live their lives.”
Bill sponsor Ted Hill — a Republican representing the Emmet, Idaho, area — reportedly said the bill would “bring peace” to schools, educational boards and parents, allowing them to focus on education instead. The representative did not immediately respond to a request for a statement or interview.
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