1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

On Friday, the Idaho Senate passed the most extreme anti-transgender bathroom ban in the United States: a law that applies to both public buildings and private businesses and carries severe criminal penalties. A first offense would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail; a second offense within five years would be a felony carrying up to five years in state prison. But the penalties do not stop there. 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, immediately making Idaho the harshest state in the nation for criminalizing transgender people. Those who find themselves behind bars may then be subjected to additional brutality at the hands of a prison system that has been systematically denying transgender people their medication and placing trans women in male facilities. The bill passed 28-7, with one Republican voting against it, and it now heads to the Governor’s desk. The bill, HB 752, states that "any person who knowingly and willfully enters a restroom or changing room in a government-owned building or a place of public accommodation designated for use by the opposite biological sex of such person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor" punishable by up to one year in prison. A second offense within five years would be a felony carrying up to five years in state prison, and under Idaho's persistent violator statute, a fourth offense—the third felony—would carry a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of life. Notably, these provisions apply to private businesses, and the bill explicitly allows prior convictions under "a similar statute in another state, or any similar local ordinance" to count toward the escalation threshold—meaning a transgender person previously sanctioned under another state's bathroom ban could face felony charges on their first offense in Idaho. The bill drew sharp criticism from a diverse range of opponents, unifying voices that typically do not share the same stance. ACLU Idaho focused on the extreme privacy violations and excessive penalties the bill would create, as well as the danger to transgender and cisgender people alike from weaponizing law enforcement against anyone who defies gender expectations. The Idaho Fraternal Order of Police also opposed the bill, with President Bryan Lovell warning that "in many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate." The Idaho Sheriffs' Association joined the opposition as well. Despite pleas from police, Bill sponsor Rep. Cornel Rasor refused to add a duty-to-depart amendment—a provision that exists in Florida's criminal bathroom ban and allows a person to avoid charges by leaving when asked—meaning a transgender person in Idaho could be arrested on the spot simply for being present. If Governor Brad Little signs the bill into law, Idaho would become the fourth state with a major bathroom ban targeting transgender people through arrest or significant criminal or civil penalties. In Florida, where the offense is a misdemeanor carrying up to 60 days in jail, Marcy Rheintgen was arrested in March 2025 for washing her hands in a women's restroom at the state capitol. In Texas, where the bathroom ban took effect in December, four transgender women were detained at the state capitol and issued criminal trespass warnings banning them from the building for a year. And in Kansas, the state created a bounty hunter system allowing private citizens to sue transgender people encountered in a bathroom for $1,000. Idaho's bill goes further than all of them—the criminal offense is triggered by merely being present in the restroom, it applies to private businesses, and the penalties dwarf those in states that have already earned "do not travel" warnings on the Erin in the Morning trans legal risk assessment map. Anti-transgender bathroom bans and policies, even informal ones, routinely draw in people they were never meant to target. In Idaho's own Senate hearing on HB 752, Tara Townsell of Nampa testified that she has been repeatedly removed from women's restrooms and forced to show ID because of her short hair—and was once denied entry to a maternity ward at a Boise hospital despite being nine months pregnant. In Congress, Reps. Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace confronted a cisgender woman in a Capitol restroom, mistakenly believing she was a transgender member of Congress. In Arizona, a Black woman with a “masculine” appearance was confronted by police officers inside a Walmart restroom who tried to remove her; she said she has not used a public restroom since. The laws also create impossible situations for transgender men. In Ohio, Noah Ruiz, a 20-year-old trans man, was beaten by three men after using the women's restroom at a campground—the very bathroom the property owner had told him to use. He was then arrested for disorderly conduct, while his attackers initially faced no charges. On the other hand, anti-transgender bathroom bans in other states have led to remarkably few actual arrests or reports of crimes, suggesting that the general public has little appetite for policing who uses which restroom. Shannon Minter, vice president of legal for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told the Texas Tribune that such laws are "largely as a practical matter, unenforceable" and "almost never enforced," adding that they are "simply designed to intimidate and scare transgender people." As a result, many transgender people in those states have vowed to continue using the restroom that matches their identity. "I understand that that is breaking a law, however, I will not bend the knee on that one," Simon Shepherd, a transgender man in North Texas, told the Tribune when the state's ban took effect. But Idaho's extreme penalties may change that calculus. When a second offense carries up to five years in prison, it becomes a concrete threat that many may find too difficult to challenge. The bill now heads to Governor Brad Little's desk. Little, a Republican, has not indicated whether he will sign or veto the measure, though he has signed every major anti-transgender bill to reach his desk during his tenure. The bill contains an emergency clause and would take effect on July 1, 2026. Advocates have signaled privately that they anticipate legal challenges should the law take effect.