18 Comments
User's avatar
Offbeatmatt's avatar

Separate But Equal will never be Equal

Celeste's avatar

Separate but equal I guess.

I’ll be curious to see where this case goes. I have no idea what to expect.

Kelly O’Brien's avatar

All this nonsense for a 2 minute visit to a restroom for relief. Foolishness knows no bounds!

Veronica Comings (she/her)'s avatar

So, practically, when entering an unfamiliar public space, a trans person would need to scout out the entire floor at a location for a single stall facility before using a multi-stall one. That’s an incredibly challenging standard to have to conform to every time you pee.

Talia Perkins's avatar

"The ruling has been widely reported as a clear victory for transgender rights, with Lambda Legal's headline declaring "Judge Blocks Idaho Law Criminalizing Transgender People's Bathroom Access" and the ACLU of Idaho stating that "trans folks in Idaho can continue participating in public life without the threat of being arrested for using the bathroom," an obviously incorrect statement given enforcement is still very possible if a single-use bathroom is available."

Well a realistic interpretation doesn't permit triumphal fund raising, I suppose.

"It is notable that the law was indeed partially blocked, and the ruling will still protect transgender people's ability to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity in many common situations—such as in buildings where no single-user facility exists on the same floor, which in practice covers most gas stations, restaurants, and smaller businesses across Idaho."

An incoherent, "both sides" ruling on a categorical moral and practical question, how competent.

Thank you for the reporting of this worse than mixed bag ruling, Erin.

tj mccanna's avatar

Well-written article. Thank you for the continued excellent journalism.

Sara's avatar

Peeing in Idaho is sure complicated.

SoCal El Lobo's avatar

And peeing “wrong” can result in life imprisonment…JFC.

p2q's avatar

What is the rationale behind this law? Why prohibit trans people from using a bathroom at all if you don't believe we're in some way fundamentally dangerous to other people in that bathroom? Is 'i just love to compromise!!!' a valid legal position? Is vibes-based ruling the best this hack of a judge can muster? Is this why he went to law school? So he can finally answer what happens when you wish in one hand and shit in the other?

Jaimie Hileman's avatar

The rationale is that they want transgender people to leave the state and never come back OR get jailed and then forcibly detransitioned socially, medically, psychologically, and legally. The end result is the same; a trans-free Idaho.

Remember the Judenfreies Reich initiative of the 1940s to create a German Reich spanning all of Europe with no Jewish people anywhere?

This is the Project 2025 GOPMAGA initiative for a trans-free America.

The target has been updated but the process and desired outcomes are the same.

Genocide.

Every time, someone says "this cannot happen, not never again!" And yet it has, dozens of times.

Never again...no longer has any intrinsic mimetic value in the language of genocide, extermination, and erasure.

Now we're being never-againned, AGAIN.

Chris Whissen's avatar

The whole law is ridiculous, and the same floor thing isn't much better. In a mall, airport, sports venue, convention center or similarly large facility that would mean checking the entire floor for one?

Time to practice saying "The single-user one was occupied when I got here."

Edward Jay Allan's avatar

In this case, as among so many others, my “like “ by no means means “agree with “ or “am happy with.”

Krikit's Songs's avatar

So much hate. Shameful.

Stef's avatar

Who here thinks the 'phobes and self-appointed bathroom cops will believe you if you say the single-use facilities were occupied ? ---Yeah, me neither.

Miranda Warren's avatar

The wording is also poor. If it was going to make the single-user ruling, it needed to be "on the same floor and level of access." As worded, a single user restroom in the private part of the floor, inaccessible to the public, still proscribes the multi-user restroom on the same floor. By example, at the court house, if the judge has a private single-user toilet in her chambers, the written order blocks use of the public restroom on the same floor.

Brianne's avatar

Do these rules apply to cis-gender persons? Could a cis man be prosecuted under these rule? I think not.

Jaimie Hileman's avatar

In the bathroom bans of 2015-2016, 90% of accused were cisgender women suspected of being transgender but who weren't. That's why the legislation and enforcement were dismantled. But those ignorant of history's lessons are condemned to repeat them.

Here we go again, turning every cisgender male into a transvestigator empowered to enter women's restrooms with a legislative gold star at will to make sure no transgender people are there. So now women's rooms can be flooded with cisgender men at any time...concerned about keeping ALL women SAFE...from privacy and agency.

BasicallyGir's avatar

Did this ruling protect locker room usage or are people still forced to use the wrong locker room in idaho?