Idaho Republicans are trying to strip localities of nondiscrimination ordinances that protect LGBTQ+ people

Idaho Republicans are advancing legislation that would void local nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ residents in more than a dozen cities. Advocates warn that it represents not merely a policy disagreement but a decisive turn toward rescinding existing civil rights protections.

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House Bill 557, which has already passed the Idaho House and now sits in the Senate State Affairs Committee, would prohibit cities and counties from adopting or enforcing nondiscrimination ordinances that extend beyond state law. Because Idaho’s Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation or gender identity as protected classes, the measure would not only block future local protections but also erase existing ones in 12 cities and two counties, jurisdictions that together encompass roughly 36 percent of the state’s population.

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“This specific bill we’re talking about, HB 557 would eliminate the ability of localities to pass non-discrimination policies protecting characteristics like gender identity or sexual orientation that are not currently protected under state law,” Liam Cutler, policy counsel for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, explained in an interview with The Advocate. The legislation “would also remove existing protections that are in place, essentially stripping those LGBTQ folks of the protections that they currently have under law,” he said.

For advocates who have spent years pushing for statewide protections, the bill feels like a reversal layered atop earlier defeats.

“We, like many states, have been fighting for decades to get sexual orientation and gender identity added to the Idaho Human Rights Act,” Mistie DelliCarpini-Tolman, regional political and Idaho state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, told The Advocate. When that effort stalled in the legislature, she said, organizers pivoted to city councils and county commissions. “This was done legally. Communities came together and organized themselves city by city, got these ordinances passed.”

Now, she said, the legislature is “coming in and taking that local power away.”

“Quite an affront”

In the absence of statewide protections, local nondiscrimination ordinances became the fallback strategy. “So it’s quite an affront to us to not only see them being unwilling to add protections at a state level, but to very specifically introduce legislation that preempts cities from having those protections themselves,” Nikson Mathews, a transgender man and chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus, told The Advocate.

Advocates were granted one hearing, they said, but the proposal was voted down and never reached the floor.

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The affected cities include Boise, the state’s largest and most economically dynamic municipality. If HB 557 becomes law, “suddenly a lot of people are going to be without protections around housing, employment, and public accommodations, meaning we won’t have any recourse if discrimination occurs,” Mathews said.

Beyond legal consequences, they described a subtler loss. “There’s just comfort knowing that we live in a city that has those protections,” Mathews said. “Suddenly we don’t have them, and we feel less safe.”

At a press conference on the bill, Mathews was even more explicit about intent. “Despite the sponsor’s claims, this bill is not about uniformity. It is about control,” they said.

Institutional opposition

Prominent civil liberties groups also oppose the measure. The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho urged elected officials to stop HB 557, arguing that non-discrimination ordinances provide “critically important protections” for LGBTQ+ people and that in their absence, Idahoans face far fewer safeguards against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to the ACLU, more than 720,000 Idahoans live in cities and counties with nondiscrimination ordinances that would be nullified by the bill. The ACLU’s analysis also highlights economic stakes: Idaho cities with nondiscrimination ordinances employ nearly 42 percent of the state’s workforce, and metropolitan areas like Boise, which has a total GDP of more than $55 billion, currently operate under local protections that opponents of the bills say have not hindered growth.

The lived stakes

Cutler said nondiscrimination protections are the infrastructure of ordinary life. “We’re talking about things like, can I apply for an apartment and know that I’m not going to be denied or discriminated against for being gay, for being trans?” he said. “Can I go to a restaurant and know that a server is going to serve me? Or if I have a picture of my spouse at my desk and I later get fired for being gay, do I have any recourse?”

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In Idaho, DelliCarpini-Tolman said even public gestures can require calculation. “My wife and I check our surroundings before holding hands in a store or at a restaurant,” she told The Advocate, describing a political climate she said has grown more hostile in recent years.

At an earlier legislative hearing on adding LGBTQ+ protections to state law, she recalled “three days’ worth of stories” from Idahoans describing discrimination they’ve suffered. “These attacks aren’t happening because the NDOs weren’t working,” DelliCarpini-Tolman said. “They’re attacking because they were working.”

A bellwether state

Advocates see HB 557 as part of a broader pattern in Idaho, which in 2020 became the first state to enact a ban on transgender girls participating in school sports aligned with their gender identity. Since then, lawmakers have passed restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, bathroom access, and other measures affecting LGBTQ+ residents.

“Over the last several years, legislators have gone from refusing to protect us to actively targeting us,” Mathews said at the press conference on the bill.

Cutler warned that the implications extend beyond state lines. “I’m worried that Idaho, again, is going to be a bellwether,” he said.

What distinguishes this moment, he argued, is not merely the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ bills but their direction. “Never in history has that been sort of a normal thing in our country to remove protections that exist for a group,” Cutler said, adding, “The idea that we are taking away protections from a group should be really alarming for folks.”