The emerging police state in Idaho against transgender youth | Opinion
As of July 1, Idaho’s teachers, doctors and childcare providers have been assigned a troubling new responsibility by the government: policing children’s gender expression.
House Bill 822, signed into law this spring, requires educators, healthcare professionals and childcare providers to report transgender youth to their parents if they express an interest in socially transitioning. But the law reaches even further. Because it so broadly defines “social transition,” it can also require adults to report children for everyday choices that fall outside traditional gender expectations.
A new nickname. A different hairstyle. Different clothes. Even small changes in how a child expresses themselves could trigger mandatory reporting.
To make matters worse, if these trusted adults fail to report those changes, they can be investigated by the attorney general and fined up to $100,000 — a financially devastating penalty for most Idaho families and professionals.
Supporters claim HB 822 protects children. In reality, HB 822 is part of a growing number of laws that work together to push trans community members out of public life. And more broadly, HB 822 will transform the adults that all children rely on most into agents of government surveillance, undermining the trust that students and patients need to feel safe asking for help.
Idaho has already barred transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming medical care. It enacted the nation’s first bans on transgender girls participating in school sports — a law the U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed to take effect after we at Legal Voice sued Idaho, arguing the law undermines the right to equal protection. A law restricting transgender people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity was set to go into effect this year, before a federal court temporarily blocked key parts of it.
Taken together, these anti-trans policies could have grave consequences.
After Idaho enacted a law restricting transgender students’ access to school bathrooms, students at Boise High School challenged the law in court. While that case was pending, one of the student plaintiffs, identified publicly only as Jane Doe, died by suicide.
Before her death, Jane reflected on her fears as a trans girl and explained why privacy mattered so deeply to her: “I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent — even students who might be friendly.”
Her mother later wrote to the court, saying: “While I may never have certainty about all the things that ultimately led to Jane’s death, I know that one stressor in her life was her struggle to fit in socially as a transgender girl... This stress of feeling alienated in her life was exacerbated by Jane’s exclusion from the girls’ restroom at school.”
Across the country, transgender youth already face disproportionately high rates of depression, bullying and suicide. Against that heartbreaking reality, Idaho should be working to ensure that schools and healthcare settings remain places where every child feels safe seeking help — not creating new reasons for vulnerable young people to fear the adults they depend on most.
Make no mistake: These laws are nothing more than an attempt to divide our communities, using one group to police and marginalize the other. This new law, aimed to ban social transitioning, is the most transparent in this regard, since it forces key role models in a child’s life into a veritable gender police force.
That should concern every Idaho parent, regardless of their views on transgender issues. Schools and doctors’ offices work best when children know they can speak honestly with the adults responsible for their education and health.
William Mitchell is the Idaho Director of Legal Voice, a nonprofit that fights for gender justice through impact litigation, policy advocacy, education, and coalition building.