By Steve Gorman
June 16 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday barred Idaho from fully enforcing a new state law making it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, for transgender people to use public restrooms whose designations differ from their sex assigned at birth.
The Idaho statute, the most restrictive among various laws enacted in about 20 U.S. states limiting access of transgender people to bathrooms conforming with their gender identity, was due to go into effect on July 1.
But U.S. District Judge Amanda Brailsford, sitting in Boise, the state capital, granted a preliminary injunction curtailing the measure’s enforcement while a class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statute proceeds.
Brailsford’s order allows transgender individuals to continue using single-stall restrooms matching their gender identity, or to use a multi-stall restroom when a single-stall facility is not available on the same floor of a building.
Otherwise, the state is free to enforce the law as it applies to multi-user bathrooms, as well as to portions of the law covering public locker rooms and shower facilities, which were not subject to the court challenge.
While the plaintiffs sought a narrowly tailored injunction temporarily barring only what they viewed as the most onerous parts of the statute, they are seeking a final court ruling that would throw out all restroom restrictions in their entirety.
The thrust of the lawsuit argues that the statute violates the plaintiffs’ rights to due process, equal protection and privacy under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In her 30-page opinion, Brailsford sided with the plaintiffs on the question of due process, finding them likely to prevail on their claim that law enforcement provisions of the measure are unconstitutionally vague.
That finding alone was sufficient, she said, to override the state’s public safety arguments and issue an injunction without yet considering plaintiffs’ privacy and equal protection claims.
JUDGE NOT SWAYED BY STATE’S SAFETY CLAIMS
Proponents of the new law have asserted that its aim is to make public bathrooms safer and to prevent sexual assault or voyeurism in women’s restrooms by men posing as transgender.
The judge agreed that the state has a valid interest in “promoting bodily privacy and protecting women and children in public restrooms from those who may seek to do harm,” but ruled that those concerns can be addressed by existing criminal laws “without infringing upon plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
The plaintiffs have argued that rather than make public restrooms safer, the measure will instead expose transgender people to “likely violence, harassment and psychological harm.”
The Republican-controlled Idaho legislature “relied on inaccurate beliefs and stereotypes about transgender people” in crafting the statute, “conflating transgender people with sexual predators,” the lawsuit asserts.
Idaho is one of about 20 states with some form of bathroom access restrictions for transgender people on the books, according to a tally by the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that advocates for LGBTQ rights.
Just three other states besides Idaho – Utah, Kansas and Florida – use the threat of incarceration to enforce such laws. But Idaho’s measure is broader in scope and carries tougher criminal penalties than the others.
The statute makes it a crime to enter a restroom, changing room or shower designated for the opposite biological sex in government buildings, restaurants, stores and other private businesses when those facilities are open to the public.
The first offense under the new restrictions would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail, while a second offense within five years would be a felony, carrying a maximum five-year prison sentence.
Idaho passed two previous laws curbing access to bathrooms in public schools and on college campuses to students whose birth sex corresponds to the gender designation of the facility in question, and seeks to enforce those by allowing students to sue if they encounter a transgender person in violation.
Both those statutes are under legal challenge and remain in effect as they wend their way through the courts.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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