Idaho Court Asked to Block Law Banning Transgender Student Athletes

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion Thursday in U.S. district court in Boise, Idaho, for a preliminary injunction to block a new law that bans transgender and intersex women and girls from participating in school sports.The Idaho bill, known as HB500, was signed into law by Republican Gov. Brad Little in late March. It is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2020.The motion filed in Hecox v. Little, the lawsuit challenging HB500, requests that the judge block the implementation of HB500 by early August so that transgender students can participate in athletic tryouts this fall. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student at Boise State University, and an anonymous junior at Boise High School. The motion cited the law’s violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.HB500 bans transgender girls from participating in school athletics and legalizes the practice of gender verification screenings, by which female athletes may be required to prove their sex with invasive genital or genetic screenings in order to compete. Idaho is not the first state to introduce bills to restrict the participation of transgender athletes; however, it is the only state to have passed a statewide ban on participation of transgender athletes. Idaho’s legislation is a sign of the growing debate surrounding how to regulate transgender athletes. Earlier this year, many states, including New Hampshire and Arizona, introduced similar bills attempting to regulate transgender athletes.FILE – Attorney General William Barr speaks in Washington, March 23, 2020.In March, the debate reached the U.S. Justice Department. In a statement signed by Attorney General William Barr, the Justice Department argued against a Connecticut policy allowing transgender students to compete as the gender with which they identified. The policy was based on a state law that requires high school students to be treated according to their gender identity and Title IX, the federal law that prohibits exclusion from an educational program on the basis of sex. Barr and other department officials argued that the Connecticut policy ignores the real physiological differences between men and women, and deprives biological females of fair, single-sex competitions protected by Title IX. 
 
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