Idaho is being sued over its ‘hateful’ new transphobic laws, for the second time in one week
Stock image of child playing sport. (Pexels)
Idaho has now been sued twice in one week over its “hateful” new laws targeting the trans community, which were passed by Republican leaders in the state during the coronavirus pandemic.
The laws – signed into existence by Republican Idaho governor Brad Little on March 30 – have been widely criticised as being transphobic.
One prevents trans people from being able to update the gender on their birth certificates, and the other bans schools and colleges from letting transgender women and girls take part in sports.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho was the first to challenge the “hateful, unconstitutional” anti-trans Idaho law with legal action.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday to challenge the law targeting trans kids.
Then on Thursday, civil rights organisation Lambda Legal filed a second lawsuit, this time targeting the law that bars transgender people from updating the gender on their birth certificate.
Lambda Legal brought the successful 2018 lawsuit in Idaho forcing the state to allow transgender people to change the gender on their birth certificates.
Now, it is back in court, asking the judge in the 2018 case to affirm that her ruling still stands – a ruling that had included a caveat banning the state from overturning it.
The request for affirmation of the ruling was filed by lawyer Monica Cockerille on behalf of two transgender women.
Cockerille said in legal documents that the federal judge made it clear in 2018 “that Idaho state officials could not categorically ban transgender people from correcting their birth certificates for the purpose of matching their gender identity”.
The new law is “in defiance of that constitutional ruling, which was backed by the force of a permanent injunction of this Court”, Cockerille wrote, according to NBC News.
Lambda Legal attorney, Peter Renn, called the new ban “a naked flouting of the rule of law”.
He added: “It is shocking that state lawmakers would be so brazenly lawless as to defy a federal court ruling. The rule of law collapses if we refuse to abide by the outcome of who wins and loses in our system of justice.”
