A proposal restricting restroom access to transgender people in Idaho is moving forward in the state Senate.
The bill from Rep. Barbara Ehardt (R-Idaho Falls) would limit access to certain bathrooms based on a person’s gender assigned at birth.
Specifically, it would apply to prisons, domestic violence shelters and public universities.
“So that a biological female doesn’t find out when she goes to school and she’s in her dorm rooms [sic] and she has to call mom and dad and say, ‘My roommate is male.’ That’s not fair,” Ehardt said.
Students living on-campus at each of Idaho’s colleges and universities are paired with people of the same gender unless specifically requested according to their respective policies published online.
If a public entity doesn’t take “reasonable steps” to block trans people from using specific bathrooms, it could be sued in civil court.
Nearly every person who testified in a Senate committee opposed it.
“What I have heard and what I have been threatened with in the past has forced me, through safety, to never go into a men’s restroom,” said Alexa-Lynne Fill, a transgender woman who lives in Nampa.
Ehardt said it’s just the opposite.
“That’s not what’s going to happen, it’s not what’s happened,” she said.
“But the other concerns are probably more real as to what happens to our women if we don’t protect them in the prisons, domestic violence centers and our dorm rooms,” Ehardt said.
As for enforcing the bill, she compared it to reporting someone smoking marijuana in a public bathroom.
“Smoking pot in a public bathroom or anywhere in Idaho is against the law. Being transgender is not – at least not yet,” said Assistant Senate Democratic Leader James Ruchti (D-Pocatello).
Ruchti said the bill goes beyond just affecting transgender people.
Heterosexual couples could not let their partners or friends of the opposite sex use the restroom in their dorm rooms. Those of the opposite sex also couldn’t stay the night.
“We are becoming the morality police whether this bill was intended to do this or not,” he said.
The bill cleared the Senate State Affairs Committee with Ruchti opposing it.
It now goes to the Senate floor where Ehardt said the intent is to amend it to give certain carve outs for law enforcement working at county jails or state prisons.
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