Idaho wanted to throw transgender people in jail for using the bathroom. A federal judge just stepped in. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amanda Brailsford put the brakes on the state’s aggressive new bathroom ban, sparing trans residents from the immediate threat of handcuffs just for answering nature’s call.
The law, signed in March by Republican Governor Brad Little, was supposed to kick in on July 1. It didn’t just target schools. It went way further, stretching its reach into privately owned businesses that dare to keep their restrooms open to the public. Get caught in the “wrong” stall twice, and you could face up to five years in a state penitentiary. First offense? Up to a year. It is a level of state-sponsored bathroom policing that makes other conservative states look downright hands-off.
Naturally, the law had loopholes. Ridiculous ones. You could use the opposite-sex single-stall restroom, but only if you were in “dire need.” How do you prove that to a cop? The Idaho Chiefs of Police Association had the same question. They openly wondered how on earth officers were supposed to measure a citizen’s level of bladder desperation.
Six transgender Idahoans, backed by the ACLU and Lambda Legal, sued. They argued the law was a vague, unconstitutional mess. Brailsford, a Biden appointee, agreed. She didn’t kill the law entirely, but she gutted its teeth. Under her preliminary injunction, the state can’t prosecute anyone using a single-stall restroom, or anyone using a multi-stall facility if there isn’t an empty single-use restroom on the same floor.
Civil rights lawyers are celebrating, calling it a shield against state-sanctioned harassment. But the political theater isn’t over. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador immediately promised an appeal. He blasted the ruling as “results-driven” and insisted that “biological sex is not vague.” So the battle moves up the ladder. Meanwhile, Idahoans can use the restroom in peace. At least for now.
