The founder of Liberty Counsel is praising a court ruling in the state of Idaho that upheld the state’s law that requires public schools to provide separate locker rooms and showers for boys and girls, and requires students to use facilities that correspond with their sex, at birth.
“This is a commonsense decision by the district court,” explained Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver.
“The Idaho law is meant to protect children’s safety and privacy. It can be humiliating, demeaning and unsafe for children to be exposed to the opposite sex. Biology is fixed at birth, and children with gender confusion need counseling, not access to the private spaces of the opposite gender.”
It was Idaho’s Chief U.S. District Judge David Nye who had temporarily blocked the law from taking effect last August, but after hearing arguments in the case he ordered his injunction to expire within 21 days to give school districts time to designate the required facilities for students, Liberty Counsel’s report confirmed.
The statute now will take effect November 2 even as a trial will be set on complaints by two Boise students who claim discrimination.
The state law, Senate Bill 1100, got overwhelming support from state lawmakers. It also gives students the right to sue their schools if they encounter a person of the opposite sex while using a facility designated for their biological sex.
Nye said the issue is whether “a student must, against his or her wishes, be forced to change (or undertake other private duties) in the presence of someone of the opposite sex.”
He noted courts must rule on the constitutionality of laws, not write them.
And he confirmed the law was adopted “to protect the privacy of the sexes. A policy or statute can lawfully classify based on biological sex without unlawfully discriminating based on transgender status.”
Multiple court rulings have recognized the constitutional right to bodily privacy.
“It does not take a court to acknowledge what most people inherently recognize: a desire for bodily privacy in restrooms (and like spaces) is rational because one’s body is private. That individuals generally desire privacy is based upon the inherent differences between male and female bodies,” the judge said.
He pointed out the two biological sexes are not interchangeable and said, “This appreciation is even more relevant considering school-age children are still developing—mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially—and asking them to expose their bodies to students of the opposite sex (or to be exposed to the bodies of the opposite sex) brings heightened levels of stress.”
Liberty Counsel reported, “At least nine states have laws requiring public school students to use facilities that align to their biological sex (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee).”
