(LifeSiteNews) — Transgender activists have dropped a longstanding lawsuit against Idaho’s ban on gender-confused students using bathrooms and other private spaces of the opposite sex in public schools.
Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced on Thursday that the legal challenge to Idaho’s law had “come to an end after the plaintiffs agreed to voluntarily dismiss both their district court case and their Ninth Circuit appeal.”
“The case, Sexuality and Gender Alliance v. Critchfield, targeted Idaho’s law protecting sex-specific spaces in K-12 public schools, including locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and overnight accommodations,” the attorney general’s office added.
The complaining parties noted that in November they had filed proposed findings of fact “that included that two current members of Boise High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance disclosed they were [gender-confused] and would be impacted by the law,” according to the Idaho Statesman.
“In January, one of those students, identified as Jane Doe, died by suicide, according to court filings. The other student is no longer at Boise High School,” the Statesman said.
Gender-confused people are known to have much higher suicide rates, particularly after undergoing transgender surgeries.
The Idaho attorney general’s office said:
In March 2023, the Idaho Legislature passed Senate Bill 1100, requiring students in Idaho public schools to use bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and overnight facilities corresponding to their biological sex. The law also requires schools to provide single-occupancy accommodations for any student who prefers not to use a multi-occupancy facility. Shortly after passage, a student and the Sexuality and Gender Alliance filed suit, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause, Title IX, and the right to privacy.
Critics warn that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, and changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers.
The Idaho law was originally slated to take effect in July of that year, but the LGBT activist law group Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against it, prompting U.S. District Judge David Nye to temporarily halt its enforcement the following month. Nye eventually let that block expire, but litigation had continued.
“In October 2023, U.S. District Judge David Nye denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, agreeing with Attorney General Labrador’s arguments that SB 1100 is substantially related to the government’s important interest in protecting the privacy and safety of students,” according to the Idaho attorney general’s office.
“The plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which unanimously affirmed the district court in March 2025, finding that protecting students’ bodily privacy is a legitimate government interest and that the law violated neither the Equal Protection Clause nor Title IX,” it added.
The plaintiffs have now agreed to drop the case entirely, according to the attorney general’s office.
