Current:Home > MarketsLaw restricting bathroom use for Idaho transgender students to go into effect as challenge continues-LoTradeCoin
Law restricting bathroom use for Idaho transgender students to go into effect as challenge continues
View Date:2024-12-24 00:38:27
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho law restricting which bathrooms transgender students can use in schools will go into effect while a court challenge plays out.
Chief U.S. District Judge David Nye on Thursday denied a request by a plaintiff who is challenging the law to keep it from being enforced until the lawsuit is resolved, The Idaho Statesman reported. In August, Nye had placed the law on hold in August pending his decision.
The law will go into effect 21 days after his ruling.
It prohibits transgender students from using public school restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. It also allows other students to sue their school if they encounter a student using a bathroom that doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth.
Nye said the plaintiff failed to show their challenge would succeed. He noted the law is “substantially related to the government’s important interest in protecting the privacy and safety of students” while using a restroom or a changing room.
Lambda Legal, which represents LGBTQ+ people in lawsuits, sued the state in July on behalf of an Idaho transgender student, arguing that the law known as Senate Bill 1100 unconstitutionally discriminates against students based on their gender identities.
“Although it likely comes as little solace to Idaho’s transgender students who, as a result of the court’s decision today, may have to change their routines, or who, regrettably, may face other societal hardships, the court must stay within its lane,” Nye wrote. “Its duty is to interpret the law; it is not a policy-making body.”
The judge also denied the state’s request to dismiss the case, saying state attorneys sought to dismiss all of the lawsuit’s claims in a “perfunctory manner, with little explanation.”
School districts in Idaho currently regulate which bathrooms transgender students may use. About a quarter of Idaho schools allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, Nye said in a previous decision.
Thursday’s ruling puts transgender students directly in harm’s way by stigmatizing them as outsiders in their own communities and depriving them of the basic ability to go about their school day like everyone else, Peter Renn, Lambda Legal senior counsel, said in a statement.
“The vast majority of courts ruling on similar discriminatory laws have struck them down, and the court’s decision here is an outlier that fails to respect the equal dignity of transgender students,” he said.
Idaho Superintendent for Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, members of the Idaho State Board of Education and members of the Boise School District’s board of trustees are defendants in the case.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador in a statement called the ruling a significant win for his office.
“Society has separated these intimate facilities for time immemorial, and it is particularly important that the safety and privacy interests of minor students are protected,” Labrador said.
Republican Sen. Ben Adams, of Nampa, sponsored the measure, and the Idaho Family Policy Center, a religious lobbying group, helped write it. The group also pushed a new Idaho law criminalizing gender-affirming health care for minors.
Many GOP-controlled states have passed similar anti-transgender laws.
In August, a federal appeals court upheld a decision blocking Idaho’s 2020 first-in-the-nation ban on transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports.
In that case, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ban discriminates against all women, citing a provision in the law that allows for anyone to dispute the sex of a female student athlete in Idaho. That provision would require the athlete to verify their gender through medical procedures, including gynecological exams.
veryGood! (95387)
Related
- 12 college students charged with hate crimes after assault in Maryland
- For at least a decade Quinault Nation has tried to escape the rising Pacific. Time is running out
- Milwaukee hotel workers fired after death of Black man pinned down outside
- Theater festivals offer to give up their grants if DeSantis restores funding for Florida arts groups
- It's cozy gaming season! Video game updates you may have missed, including Stardew Valley
- Ashley Judd: I'm calling on Biden to step aside. Beating Trump is too important.
- MTV Reveals Chanel West Coast's Ridiculousness Replacement
- Tour de France standings, results: Biniam Girmay sprints to Stage 12 victory
- AP Top 25: Oregon remains No. 1 as Big Ten grabs 4 of top 5 spots; Georgia, Miami out of top 10
- Shelley Duvall, star of The Shining and Popeye, dies at 75
Ranking
- Martha Stewart playfully pushes Drew Barrymore away in touchy interview
- Police report describes violent scene before ex-Cardinal Adrian Wilson's arrest
- Shark species can get kind of weird. See 3 of the strangest wobbegongs, goblins and vipers.
- An Ohio mom was killed while trying to stop the theft of a car that had her 6-year-old son inside
- See Megan Fox, Machine Gun Kelly, Brian Austin Green and Sharna Burgess' Blended Family Photos
- Kentucky drug crackdown yields 200 arrests in Operation Summer Heat
- Health alert issued for ready-to-eat meats illegally imported from the Philippines
- What's the Jamestown Canyon virus, the virus found in some Maine mosquitoes?
Recommendation
-
NASCAR Championship race live updates, how to watch: Cup title on the line at Phoenix
-
Serena Williams Calls Out Harrison Butker at 2024 ESPYS
-
The GOP platform calls for ‘universal school choice.’ What would that mean for students?
-
Bill Belichick hired as analyst for 'Inside the NFL'
-
Colts' Kenny Moore II ridicules team's effort in loss to Bills
-
'Actions of a coward': California man arrested in killings of wife, baby, in-laws
-
Mississippi election officials argue against quick work on drawing new majority-Black districts
-
An Iowa man is convicted of murdering a police officer who tried to arrest him