Lawsuit challenging Idaho’s bathroom bill dismissed after student plaintiff dies by suicide

A 2023 Idaho bathroom bill is now permanently in effect statewide following the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the anti-trans legislation.

Attorneys for the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, a student group at Boise High School, and the state agreed to dismiss the lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday following the death of one plaintiff and the high-school graduation of another, per Idaho Education News.

The late plaintiff, as Idaho Education News noted, was a trans student who died by suicide in January, identified only in court filings as Jane Doe. Lawsuits against the bathroom ban were currently pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Court of Idaho.

Now in effect as of May 2025, the law bans students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender assigned at birth and also permits students to sue schools if they encounter a trans person in a public restroom or changing facility for a minimum fine of $5,000, per Boise State Public Radio.

“From the district court to the Ninth Circuit, we defended Idaho’s right to protect students’ privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms,” Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a news release Thursday. “Idaho families can be confident that this law is fully in effect and will remain so.”

In their suit, the plaintiffs and the Sexuality and Gender Alliance argued that the law violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection rights clause because it disallowed trans students from using facilities that matched their gender identity. They also argued that the law violated Title IX, the federal statute prohibiting sex-based discrimination.

The unidentified Jane Doe spoke about her fear of being outed as trans by having to access a single-sex restroom on campus in a court filing.

“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,” Jane Doe said, per Idaho Education News. “I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent — even students who might be friendly. For me, it is not a part of myself I talk about or that I feel is the most important part of my identity.”

In a Tuesday filing, U.S. District Court Judge David Nye wrote that the court “expresses its sincerest sympathies to Jane Doe’s family.”

While SB1100 was held up in court, Idaho Republicans passed a separate anti-trans bathroom bill, considered one of the most extreme in the nation, in March. The law makes it a crime for trans people to use the public accommodations that match their gender in any government-owned building or place of public accommodation.

Only three other states — Florida, Kansas and Utah — levy criminal penalties against trans people using restrooms according to their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

If you or a loved one are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.