A bill defining gender under Idaho law as solely female or male is headed to the House after a party line vote in committee Wednesday morning.
The legislation doesn’t consider those with sexual development issues or intersex people to be exceptions.
Rep. Julianne Young, who sponsors the bill, said awareness of transgender issue have upended what she views as biological truths.
“There is now a question as to whether male means what we always have assumed it to mean and whether female means what we assume it to mean,” Young said.
No one supported the bill during public testimony, including Merrick Collins, a transgender man who lives in the Treasure Valley.
“I am a man,” said Collins. “To consider me forever a woman despite all of this, to make me use women’s facilities and group me with women legally and socially is an insult to myself and to women.”
Nickson Mathews, another transgender man who lives in Boise, said his journey discovering his gender identity has generally been joyful except when he testifies against bills like this.
“For you, these might be words. But for us, this is our identity,” Mathews said.
Others described the bill as discriminatory and harmful to trans people.
Young rejects that characterization.
“We ought to be able to have fact-based discussions around policy in a way that is still civil,” she said.
The bill passed after little discussion from committee members and could be considered by the full House later this week.
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