Despite a complaint from the family of a transgender child, a federal judge has maintained an Idaho state requiring minors to use the toilet in public schools according to their assigned sex at birth.
On Thursday, Judge David Nye of the United States District Court declared that his court is “not a policy-making body” and must defer to the state legislature for the time being. In August, Nye, who was appointed by then-Republican President Donald Trump, temporarily stopped the law.
Nye denied the state’s move to dismiss the lawsuit, but he did not stay the injunction against the statute while it is being litigated. Before the court can reach a final ruling, further evidence is required.
According to Peter Renn, senior attorney at Lambda Legal, who represents the family, “this ruling directly puts transgender students in harm’s way by stigmatizing them as outsiders in their own communities and denying them the basic ability to go about their school day like everyone else.”
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Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador welcomed the judgment as a “significant win” and defended the legislation as “designed to protect students.”
Under the identity Rebecca Roe, the teenager’s family and a student organization launched a complaint against the state in July. They stated that the state statute, signed into law by Republican Governor Brad Little in March, violates students’ right to privacy and participates in unconstitutional gender discrimination.
If a transgender student violates the law by using a restroom, a student in Idaho can sue the school for $5,000.
The new law requires schools to create a “reasonable accommodation” for transgender students who are unable or unwilling to use the restroom associated with their gender identification. According to the lawsuit, such “alternative accommodations” are, in fact, “often inferior to the facilities used by others, located in less accessible locations, and stigmatizing for them to use.”
The 4th United States Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled that a Virginia school’s policy was unconstitutional, while the 11th United States Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta affirmed a Florida school’s policy requiring transgender students to use the toilet matching to their biological sex.
