Sweeping Idaho bill would criminalize transgender bathroom use in private businesses

BOISE, Idaho– Idaho lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it a crime for transgender people to use restrooms matching their gender identity, even in private businesses.

At least 19 states, including Idaho, already have laws banning transgender people from using restrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender in schools and, in some cases, other public places. Tracking of the laws by the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Movement Advancement Project shows that three other states – Florida, Kansas and Utah – have made it a criminal offense under certain circumstances to violate bathroom laws.

But none of the other bills apply as broadly to private businesses as Idaho’s bill, which covers any “place of public accommodation,” meaning any business or facility that serves the public. The Republican-led state Senate is expected to vote on the bill this week, deciding whether to send it to Gov. Brad Little’s desk.

If the law passes, anyone entering a public facility such as a bathroom or locker room designated for the opposite sex could be sentenced to a year in prison for a minor first offense, or up to five years in prison for a second felony offense. That’s a longer sentence than Idaho imposes for a first conviction of drunk driving or displaying offensive sexual material in public.

Protecting these spaces is a “matter of safety” and “decency,” Republican Sen. Ben Toews told a Senate committee last week.

“Private spaces such as restrooms, locker rooms and showers are segregated by gender for a reason,” Toews said. “People living in these vulnerable environments have reasonable expectations of privacy and security. »

The bill provides for several exceptions. Athletic trainers, people responding to emergencies, people monitoring inmates, guards and people helping children who need help using the bathroom get a pass. The same goes for someone who “badly needs” a bathroom, if the bathroom they are using is the only one reasonably available at that time.

Law enforcement groups, including the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police and the Idaho Association of Chiefs of Police, oppose the bill, which they say would put police officers in impossible positions, tasking them with visually determining a person’s biological sex or their level of “urgent need.” The Idaho Sheriff’s Association asked lawmakers to require people to first ask any suspected offender to leave the restroom before calling authorities, but lawmakers refused.

Heron Greenesmith, deputy policy director at the Transgender Law Center, said the “urgent need” exception could be particularly difficult to make — and that the idea that a person can only use public restrooms in an emergency is dehumanizing.

“How do we prove that we were going to poop on the floor?” they asked.

John Bueno, a transgender student at the University of Idaho and member of the student group Queer Inclusion Society, said the school has many single-use restrooms, which helps ease the logistical impacts of the bill. But the legislation would likely lead to more unwanted “profiling” of people, whether they are transgender or not, she said.

“It’s this cultural attitude of encouraging other Americans to make fun of each other and do this kind of ‘cross-dressing’ — that’s what these kinds of bills promote,” Bueno said.

What this all boils down to is an effort to disenfranchise transgender people, Bueno said.

“This will increasingly deter gay people from universities in Idaho and the state as a whole,” she said. “Which, to be honest, is probably the main goal.”

Nikson Matthews, a bearded transgender man, told a panel of lawmakers last week that the bill would force him into women’s restrooms, where his masculine appearance puts him at risk of assault from people who think he is intrusive.

“It creates a crime, but it’s not based on conduct or harm,” Matthews said. “It’s based on presence, and to justify that you have to accept that someone’s presence alone is traumatic and harmful enough to be criminalized.”

It could also make it difficult for transgender people to work, said Laura Volgert, a Boise resident.

“People might hold it for an hour if they’re at a restaurant for lunch or at a grocery store,” she told lawmakers at a committee hearing. “They can’t be expected to maintain it for a full eight-hour day.”

That’s the goal of these types of laws, Greenesmith said, to “make it untenable to go to the movies, to go to the doctor, to go to the bank.”

Supporters say that’s not the case.

Suzanne Tabert, a Sandpoint resident, said the bill aims to “maintain clear and enforceable limits” so women and children can feel safe.

“If we lose the ability to protect on the basis of biological sex, we lose our most effective tool to prevent harassment, voyeurism and other sex crimes before they happen,” she said.

She then continued: “This legislation is not about how an individual identifies, nor does it seek to target or malign the transgender community. Rather, it supports a universal standard of privacy.”

Bathrooms aren’t the only place lawmakers are imposing restrictions on transgender people in the name of protecting women and girls. At least 25 states ban transgender women and girls from certain women’s and women’s sports competitions. And at least 27 states have laws restricting or prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors.

Expanding all of these policies is also a priority for President Donald Trump.

The only widely reported arrest of a person accused of violating transgender bathroom restrictions was part of a protest in Florida last year.

___ Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.