The Boise School District will pay $34,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a former cisgender student who said she twice encountered a transgender classmate in the girls’ restroom at Boise High School in early 2025.
The lawsuit, filed by the right-wing Idaho Family Policy Center Legal Center on behalf of the cisgender student at Boise High School, alleged that the school district permitted the transgender student to use the girls’ restroom as part of a “gender support plan,” according to Boise NBC affiliate KTVB.
The student sought damages under Idaho’s 2023 law requiring public school students to use multi-occupancy restrooms and changing facilities that align with their sex assigned at birth. Soon after the law passed, a federal judge temporarily blocked it from taking effect.
Under the law — which the Idaho Family Policy Center helped draft — cisgender students can sue school districts for $5,000 each time they encounter a transgender student using a restroom that aligns with their gender identity.
Critics have called the provision a “bounty” and a “money grab” that encourages opponents of transgender rights to accuse others of violating the law for financial gain.
Both the Idaho Family Policy Center and the family of the cisgender student, referred to as “Jane Doe,” issued statements claiming that the district’s policy allowing trans students to use gender-affirming restrooms, as well as its failure to address the family’s concerns, prompted the lawsuit.
John Doe — the pseudonym used by Jane Doe’s father — said in a news release that his daughter endured a “breach of her privacy.”
“Not once but twice she encountered a male student in the female bathroom,” John Doe said. “When she reported the incidents to school staff, she was told that it was their policy to allow males who identify as female to use the bathroom of their choice.”
Attorneys for the Boise School District asked an Ada County judge to dismiss Jane Doe’s lawsuit, arguing that a federal stay blocking enforcement of the law was in effect when the restroom encounters occurred in January and February 2025.
The Idaho Family Policy Center also noted that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had declined to block the law in a separate lawsuit brought by transgender plaintiffs in March 2025. Lawyers for the Doe family also argued that the district should have already been complying with the law because the injunction would have expired if the separate lawsuit were dropped.
After months of legal wrangling, Ada County District Judge Lynn Norton denied the motion to dismiss the Boise High School case in July 2026, ruling that while the federal stay barred “enforcement” of the transgender restroom ban, it didn’t preclude Jane Doe from pursuing a private cause of action against the school district. Norton allowed the case to proceed and scheduled a trial for June 2027.
Before the case could go to trial, the two sides reached a settlement under which the school district agreed to pay Doe $10,000 in damages and $24,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Dan Hollar, the public affairs administrator for the Boise School District, said Tuesday that the settlement “resolves disputed claims,” but that the district “continues to maintain that it acted appropriately.”
“Neither the District nor any of its employees admits, acknowledges, or concedes any fault, wrongdoing, liability, or other misconduct,” Hollar told Idaho Education News in an email.
Hollar said that the specific terms of the settlement “are confidential and will not be disclosed or publicized,” adding, “Out of respect for the privacy of the minor children involved, the District will have no further comment on this matter.”
With the restroom ban now fully in effect, transgender and nonbinary students must either use restrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth or use a limited number of single-user restrooms provided by schools as alternative accommodations.
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