A 2023 Idaho law criminalizing gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth is being challenged in federal court by two transgender adolescents and their families. HB 71, signed into law by Idaho Governor Brad Little in May 2023, prohibits gender-affirming medical care that is widely accepted to treat gender dysphoria, helping alleviate the distress of gender dysphoria and significantly improving patients’ mental health and well-being. Such treatment is supported by leading medical experts and all major U.S. medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Lindsay is a college student at Boise State University. She wants to run on the track team so she can form friendships with other girls. A new law in Idaho would ban her from doing so because she is transgender.

Two incarcerated transgender women have sued the state of Idaho alleging that HB 688, a 2024 law barring state funding for gender-affirming medical care for transgender people, denies them access to the health care their doctors have prescribed for them and is a violation of their Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. They represent a class of all incarcerated folks within the state of Idaho who face the loss of hormone therapy due to HB 668.

The ACLU of Idaho and the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Idaho to stop enforcement of House Bill 83, charging the law violates the U.S. Constitution by attempting to supersede the federal government’s oversight of immigration enforcement, by impermissibly limiting interstate commerce, and by failing to give ordinary people fair notice of what conduct it proscribes.