Idaho activists, officials decry anti-LGBTQ+ bills as House passes trans bathroom ban in businesses

BOISE (Idaho Capitol Sun) — Local elected officials and activists gathered in the Idaho State Capitol on Monday to denounce anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the Legislature.

Nikson Mathews, who is trans, ran through a list of bills that became law in recent years. 

In 2020, Idaho became the first state to ban transgender girls and women from competing in sports of their preferred gender. In 2023, state lawmakers made it a felony for doctors to provide gender-affirming health care to transgender youth. Last year, Mathews said a dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills became law in Idaho — including an expansion to the state’s indecent exposure law.

And for more than a decade, efforts to add anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people to state law have failed. 

“Over the last several years, legislators have gone from refusing to protect us to actively targeting us,” said Mathews, who serves as chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus.

Now, lawmakers in Idaho’s Republican supermajority-controlled Legislature are considering bills to ban local anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people; expand transgender bathroom bans; and fine the city of Boise for flying an LGBTQ+ pride flag despite a state law last year banning the display on government property.

Minutes before Mathews started speaking, the Idaho House widely passed a bill that would allow people to sue if government entities and private businesses don’t ensure that people don’t enter bathrooms or changing facilities designed for another sex. 

“These bills deny health care, criminalize doctors, police public spaces, censor speech, override local control, take away parental rights, restrict privacy and target LGBTQ+ people and families,” he said. “… I just want to say to every queer and trans Idahoan: We deserve safety, we deserve joy and love, and to exist without our humanity being debated every legislative session.”

Mathews was joined by other activists and elected officials from the city of Boise, including Mayor Lauren McLean. 

Idaho House passes bathroom bill that extends to private businesses

The Idaho House on Monday widely approved a bill that expands on the state’s law banning transgender people from using their preferred school bathrooms.

House Bill 607, written by the Idaho Family Policy Center, would allow people to sue if government entities and private businesses don’t ensure their restrooms and changing facilities are separated by sex. 

Bill sponsor Rep. Ted Hill, an Eagle Republican, says the bill is about keeping people safe.

“We’re not going to check IDs. There’s no burdensome requirements,” Hill told House lawmakers. “It’s very simple… Let’s keep these people safe, those most vulnerable people safe in these spaces.”

But some House lawmakers said they worried that the bill creates onerous regulations for private businesses. 

Rep. Annie Henderson Haws, a Boise Democrat and attorney, called the bill “a proof nightmare,” arguing that DNA tests, photographic proof in bathrooms or monitoring by bathroom doors might be needed to enforce the bill. 

Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, an Idaho Falls Republican, called the bill “an activist’s dream.”

“It puts a bounty on the government of $10,000 just simply for somebody being in the wrong room — not for them having done anything, but just having been in the wrong room,” she said on the House floor. “I think that this bill is actually a way to intimidate and harass private businesses to push someone’s particular agenda.”

Mickelsen voted for the bill, which passed on a 56-13 vote. Four Republicans joined the House’s nine Democrats to vote against the bill. One House lawmaker was absent.

Bill would require businesses to ‘take reasonable steps’ to ensure bathrooms are single-sex

The bill proposes a lengthy set of regulations for bathrooms and changing rooms.

In government buildings, bathrooms and changing facilities must be “designated for use by male individuals only or female individuals only; and used only by individuals of the sex corresponding to the designation.” 

And it assigns a duty for “every place of public accommodation” to “take reasonable steps to ensure that the privacy and safety of an individual is protected from members of the other sex in every restroom or changing facility maintained by the place of public accommodation.” The bill outlines exceptions in both government buildings and public accommodations. 

In 2023, the Idaho Legislature passed a law that forbids people of one sex from entering public school bathrooms, showers, changing facilities and overnight accommodations that are designated for another sex, with some exceptions. 

Rep. Brent Crane, a Nampa Republican, said legislators heard similar concerns about “a litany of lawsuits” when they passed the bathroom ban in K-12 schools. But he said that bill has only sparked one lawsuit — in the Boise school district.

“This is not going to lead to a bunch of frivolous lawsuits,” Crane said of the latest bathroom bill. 

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