Idaho Students Move to Block Their Schools From Enforcing Bathroom Laws Aimed at Transgender Youth

Students in Boise are suing Idaho education officials and agencies to block the enforcement of a new state law requiring transgender students to use bathrooms that comport with their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity.

The suit was filed Thursday in Idaho federal court on behalf of an anonymous 12-year-old transgender girl enrolled in the Boise School District, as well as Boise High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance student organization.

It comes less than a week after a new state law took effect on July 1, requiring public schools to maintain separate bathrooms, showers and other facilities for students based on their sex assigned at birth.

The law reads in part that “no person shall enter a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility that is designated for one sex unless such a person is a member of that sex.”

Atlas Jones, the president of the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, called out the law in a statement issued through Lambda Legal, which brought the suit in conjunction with the firms Munger, Tolles and Olson, and Atluras Law Group.

“There is no reason to keep me and my transgender classmates from continuing to use the same school restrooms as our peers, which school policy has allowed us to do for years,” said Jones. “It would be humiliating, distracting and exhausting to try to make it through the school day without having proper access to bathrooms.”

The suit argues that the law violates the 14th Amendment, as well as Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in any schools that receive federal funding. It also alleges that the law threatens to subject affected students to “stigma and harassment,” while “increasing their risk of anxiety, depression, and suicide.”

It names the Idaho State Board of Education, the Boise School District and a number of individuals in their official capacities, including Debbie Critchfield, the state superintendent of education. 

A spokesperson for the Board of Education told the Idaho Capital Sun that the board does not comment on pending litigation, while the Boise School District could not be reached for comment.

The suit calls the law “a solution in search of a problem,” saying that schools across Idaho have allowed students to use bathrooms that match their gender identities for years without incident.

It also targets a portion of the law allowing students who encounter transgender classmates in areas that don’t match their sex assigned at birth to sue their school for thousands of dollars, creating what the suit calls “a ‘bounty’ on the heads of transgender students.”

Among the students who would be negatively impacted, the suit says, is the 12-year-old plaintiff, who is referred to by the pseudonym Rebecca Roe.

Roe first told her parents in the summer after fourth grade that she did not believe that she was a boy, according to the suit.

With the support of her parents and a therapist, Roe began socially transitioning — using a more typically feminine name and clothing, as well as female pronouns — and experienced a marked improvement in her happiness, the suit said.

Part of that transition included using public bathrooms designated for girls, which she did without incident, according to the suit.

“When Rebecca is in public, she is generally perceived by others as female,” the suit says. “Thus, if she were to use the restroom designated for males, it would appear to others that a girl was using the men’s restroom, something far more disruptive to social expectations than her use of the women’s restroom.”

As Roe prepares to head to a new school for the start of seventh grade, her parents fear that her being forced to use the boys’ bathroom — or a neutral, single-stall restroom — would out her as transgender and subject her to stigmatization.

“The idea that Rebecca will be excluded from using facilities designated for girls is painful and stressful to her and makes her feel unequal to other girls,” the suit reads. “It makes her feel like an outsider.”