Demonstrators Arrested After Sit-In In Idaho Protesting Extreme Felony Trans Bathroom Ban

9 Idaho demonstrators were arrested after refusing to leave the Governor's office.

Idaho News 6

This week, Idaho's governor signed into law what many are calling the most extreme anti-trans law in the United States—a bathroom ban that carries up to a year in jail for a first offense and up to five years for a second. The law criminalizes any transgender person who "knowingly and willfully" enters a bathroom, locker room, or changing room that does not align with their sex assigned at birth—penalties harsher than Idaho's own punishments for indecent exposure or driving under the influence. Incarceration under the law could also mean the removal of hormone therapy for transgender people held in jail or prison. Public outcry against the law has been swift, with human rights organizations decrying it. Now, the day after signing the law on Trans Day of Visibility, demonstrators staged their own response: a sit-in at Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little's office, demanding to speak with him. When the governor refused to meet with them and they refused to leave, nine were arrested.

For more than three hours, over 40 demonstrators—primarily faith leaders and prominent LGBTQ+ local advocates—sat in the entry to Gov. Brad Little's office demanding a meeting. The group was led by the Rev. Sara LaWall, minister of the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and the parent of a transgender daughter, and Nikson Mathews, a transgender activist who served as a substitute state senator last year. Before entering, LaWall read a prayer: "We pray for protection, for dignity, for life. Guard them from harm, from fear, from laws that would erase them." Protesters sang for hours, held trans pride flags, and wrote notes to the governor. Little refused the meeting. A staffer told them the office closed at 5 p.m. When the nine refused to leave, Idaho State Police arrested them at 5:30 p.m. on misdemeanor trespass charges and booked them into the Ada County Jail. All nine—ranging in age from 34 to 84—were released later that night.

"I think every trans person I know is having this conversation of, do we stay and fight?We know who we are, and we just keep carrying that forward into the hallway and outside of that building and in all the spaces that we go into,” Said Mathews after the protest.

Sit-ins against unjust laws have a long history in the United States, from the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins of 1960 that helped desegregate the American South to the sit-ins of the disability rights movement that led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now, transgender people and their allies are adopting the same tactics. In March 2025, Marcy Rheintgen, a transgender college student, declared "I am here to break the law" before entering a women's restroom at the Florida State Capitol and being arrested. In Texas, four transgender women were detained at the state capitol and issued criminal trespass warnings after the state's bathroom ban took effect in December. And just this week, as EITM reported, Samantha Boucher, founder of Trans Liberty, walked into a women's restroom at the Kansas Statehouse on Trans Day of Visibility in a deliberate act of civil disobedience.

The Idaho sit-in was staged in protest of HB 752, which Gov. Little signed into law on Trans Day of Visibility. As EITM has reported, the law is the most extreme bathroom ban in the nation. It criminalizes any transgender person who "knowingly and willfully" enters a bathroom, locker room, or changing room that does not align with their sex assigned at birth. A first offense is a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail. A second offense within five years is a felony carrying up to five years in prison. And under Idaho's persistent violator statute, a transgender person convicted of a fourth bathroom offense—their third felony—could face a mandatory minimum of five years and up to life in prison. Unlike bathroom bans in most other states, the Idaho bathroom ban also applies to private businesses. Little signed the bill on the same day he signed a flag ban law that forced the city of Boise to lower its Pride flag from city hall.

The law is already forcing some transgender Idahoans to leave the state. Scar Rulien, a transgender Idaho resident, told KTVB: "I don't want to leave Idaho, but I know many people who would have to leave Idaho." State Sen. Ron Taylor, a Democrat from Hailey, said constituents told him they would move out of state because the law would throw their transgender children in jail. "Maybe that's what some of us want, is to chase a population that's marginalized out of Idaho," Taylor said on the Senate floor. "But that's not Idaho. Idaho was founded by a population that was marginalized."

A GoFundMe organized by LaWall has raised over $27,000 to cover bail, bond, and legal fees for those arrested. "This legislative session has been defined by a relentless wave of attacks on LGBTQ+ Idahoans. Lawmakers have limited public testimony, fast-tracked harmful legislation, and ignored the voices of the very people they were elected to serve. So today a group of Idahoans made themselves impossible to ignore So today a group of Idahoans made themselves impossible to ignore,” the statement read, before asking for help with the legal fees for those involved.

The law takes effect July 1, 2026. Advocates have signaled they anticipate a legal challenge to HB 752 in the coming months. The ACLU of Idaho has called the law "dangerous and unprecedented" and, affected transgender Idahoans who believe their rights have been violated should contact the organization.