A legal challenge to Idaho’s anti-trans school bathroom law has been dismissed after one of the transgender plaintiffs died by suicide earlier this year. The lawsuits against Senate Bill 1100 were closed last week after Boise High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance and the state agreed to dismiss the cases. The decision came the same day another student involved in the lawsuit graduated.
The student group first sued Idaho in 2023, arguing the law violated the 14th Amendment and Title IX by preventing transgender students from using bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity. Under the law, now fully in effect in Idaho K-12 schools, districts must offer reasonable accommodations for students unwilling to use facilities tied to their sex assigned at birth.
The Boise students requested access to single-user restrooms but argued the requirement singled them out.
One student identified in court documents as Jane Doe said in court filings,
“It is scary having to look around before to see if anyone will see me going into the single-user restroom, as I worry about people gossiping and speculating about me being transgender…I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent.”
Jane Doe died by suicide in January. U.S. District Judge David Nye offered condolences to the student’s family in a court filing. Idaho also enacted a broader bathroom restriction law this year, applying to public and private businesses. That measure is now facing a separate lawsuit from six transgender Idaho residents.
