Federal Judge Blocks Idaho’s Trans Bathroom Ban
The temporary ruling prevents Idaho from enforcing bathroom restrictions that could have subjected transgender people to prison sentences.
A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction blocking Idaho from enforcing a law that could penalize transgender people with up to five years in prison for using public bathrooms that do not align with their assigned sex at birth.
The law, known as HB 752, was set to take effect on July 1 after being signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little earlier this year. However, the injunction bars police from enforcing the law’s bathroom restrictions. It does not apply to similar restrictions on access to changing rooms, which the lead plaintiffs — six transgender Idahoans — have not challenged.
Under the law, transgender people in Idaho are prohibited from using sex-segregated, multi-user public bathrooms that align with their gender identity, regardless of whether those facilities are located in government-owned buildings or private businesses open to the public, including gas stations, restaurants, entertainment venues, and hospitals.
A first violation of the law is punishable by up to one year in prison. The penalty increases to up to five years for a second or third violation, and could result in a life sentence if prosecutors invoke the state’s “persistent violator” statute.
In their lawsuit, the six plaintiffs argue that the bathroom restrictions violate their constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, and privacy.
The law was previously opposed by the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police and the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association, which argued that there is no practical way to verify a person’s sex at birth during a field contact without engaging in “invasive and inappropriate” questioning or searches.
They warned that the law would be difficult to enforce and could expose officers to legal liability if they made incorrect assumptions. Additionally, when Chief U.S. District Judge Amanda Brailsford questioned state officials about sex-verification procedures, they suggested requiring bathroom users to submit to DNA testing, which would be highly intrusive.
Brailsford, who issued the preliminary injunction, found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving that the law is unconstitutionally vague and would suffer “irreparable harm” without an order preventing state and law enforcement authorities from arresting and prosecuting transgender people.
Addressing the state’s claims that the law is necessary to protect the privacy of women and children in public bathrooms, Brailsford wrote that “[t]he Court does not question the inherent privacy interest implicated by restroom use nor Idaho’s interest in protecting the public from wrongdoers. But Idaho may protect those interests without infringing upon Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. As Plaintiffs note, ‘any actual safety concerns posed by a person entering a restroom “designated for the opposite biological sex” are addressed by Idaho’s existing laws.”
Brailsford also granted class certification, meaning Idaho officials may not enforce the law against the six named plaintiffs or other transgender people who seek to use a restroom consistent with their gender identity in a government-owned building or place of public accommodation. She also approved a motion allowing two of the plaintiffs to proceed under pseudonyms to protect their identities.
Brailsford’s injunction is a temporary measure that will remain in place while the courts consider the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims. Nonetheless, attorneys for the plaintiffs celebrated the ruling.
“This ruling will allow transgender people throughout Idaho to find and use a public restroom, without the fear of arrest looming over them, while we continue the longer fight to permanently defeat this discriminatory law in court,” said Kell Olson, counsel with Lambda Legal, which represents the plaintiffs alongside the American Civil Liberties Union, its Idaho chapter, the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, and the Alturas Law Group.
“This decision provides significant protections for transgender people in Idaho from the efforts of state politicians to force them out of public life altogether,” added Barbara Schwabauer, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “No one should be forced to choose between the threat of arrest for being themselves in public or the threat of harassment and violence for acting the way the state wants them to be.”
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