“We urged the Court to continue holding up a shield against the government’s attack on its transgender youth.”
Lambda Legal today urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to continue to block enforcement of an Idaho school facilities law that singles out transgender students for discriminatory treatment. In oral argument today before the Ninth Circuit, Lambda Legal asked the court to reverse a lower court ruling and secure a preliminary injunction preventing implementation of Idaho Senate Bill 1100 while Lambda Legal pursues a challenge to the law.
“Idaho seeks to blanket the entire state with a mandate of discrimination that would require all schools to banish all transgender student from all shared facilities, simply because of who they are,” Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Peter Renn said. “Targeting transgender students for discrimination is a clear violation of the Constitution as well as Title IX, as the U.S. Department of Education recently confirmed in its rule affirming protections for LGBTQ students. We urged the Court to continue holding up a shield against the government’s attack on its transgender youth, who have an equal right to go about their everyday lives at school in peace and with dignity.”
Lambda Legal, Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, and Alturas Law Group, PLLC, filed the challenge to SB 1100 in July 2023 on behalf of a seventh-grade transgender student and Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA), an LGBTQ student organization at Boise High School. In October, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho denied the students’ request for a preliminary injunction, but the Ninth Circuit granted an injunction pending appeal, allowing transgender Idaho students to continue to access the correct school facilities.
“The Ninth Circuit in November recognized the harm that SB 1100 posed to transgender students in Idaho and granted relief while considering our appeal. Now, the court needs to extend that protection,” said Lambda Legal Staff Attorney Kell Olson. “For years, transgender students have been able to use restrooms consistent with their gender at schools across Idaho without incident. SB 1100 was literally a solution in search of a problem. We hope the Ninth Circuit will recognize the need to block this law and protect Idaho’s transgender youth.”
As of July 1, 2023, Senate Bill 1100 imposed a sweeping statewide mandate, governing all public and charter schools K-12, that schools must exclude transgender students from multi-user restrooms and other school facilities matching their gender identity, based on a legislative definition of “sex” as limited to chromosomes and reproductive anatomy. The law also allows students to recover a minimum of $5,000 per violation if they encounter a transgender person using a facility barred by the law.
The lawsuit, Roe v. Critchfield, was brought by Lambda Legal, Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, and Alturas Law Group, PLLC. The complaint charges that S.B. 1100 violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, by discriminating on the basis of sex and transgender status, and by outing students as transgender.
To Know Your Rights about Bathrooms and Locker Rooms: http://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/youth/bathrooms-and-locker-rooms
You can read today’s appellate brief here.
Read more about the case here: https://lambdalegal.org/case/roe-v-critchfield/