This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
In Idaho, on April 1, House Bill 752 was signed into law by Governor Brad Little. It’s set to take effect July 1. You don’t need to be a legalese expert to understand HB 752, because its text is very short, amounting to just a page and a half of text that reads, in part:
“Any person who knowingly and willfully enters a restroom or changing room in a government-owned building or a place of public accommodation, as defined in section 67-5902, Idaho Code, that is designated for use by the opposite biological sex of such person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and may be imprisoned in county jail for a period not to exceed one (1) year. Any person who pleads guilty to or is found guilty of a violation of this section, a similar statute in another state, or any similar local ordinance for a second time within five (5) years of the first conviction … shall be guilty of a felony and may be imprisoned in the state prison for a period not to exceed five (5) years.”
Yeah. That’s right. Starting this summer, it will become a life-ruining experience to use the correct bathroom in the state of Idaho. “Government-owned buildings and places of public accommodation,” for the record, includes basically every indoors space in the state that is not somebody’s residence. Idaho Code defines a place of public accommodation very broadly as “a business, accommodation, refreshment, entertainment, recreation, or transportation facility of any kind, whether licensed or not, whose goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations are extended, offered, sold, or otherwise made available to the public.”
Never mind that this essentially bans transgender people from existing in public in Idaho. Never mind that being very visibly masculine and entering the women’s restroom, or being very visibly feminine and entering the men’s restroom, can lead to confrontations with strangers that may result in your being assaulted. Never mind that it would be nearly impossible to correctly enforce this law.
Oh, actually… Idaho’s Solicitor General, Michael Zarian, has a solution for that: Just do DNA tests.
Hey, Mike? This isn’t CSI: Cracker Barrel. You can’t just bust out a genetic test and figure out somebody’s chromosomal composition on the spot. These tests usually take weeks to come back. Who’s requesting the tests? Who’s performing the testing? Who’s paying for the tests? I really wish I could ask Michael Zarian to describe exactly how he thinks these tests will work, because I imagine he hasn’t thoroughly explored the series of events in that undervolted noodle idling between his ears.
As the century of American humiliation dawns in earnest, I believe naked incompetence will be our greatest export. We will loan subject matter experts amateurs to foreign powers, and they will work tirelessly as voices of irrationality in the halls of power abroad, misinforming and agitating our allies at every turn.
Behold: The Dunning–Kruger Empire.
Mike was pretty sure police won’t need a warrant to force random people standing in Idahoan bathrooms to submit to impromptu genetic testing. Kell Olson, who is a Lambda Legal attorney and transgender man, disagreed, stating that imposed genetic testing typically requires a warrant signed by a judge. I think most Americans, including many toddlers, could have guessed that was the case… but whatever.
There are a handful of carveouts in the text of HB 752 that make it permissible for a person with one set of chromosomes to enter a bathroom intended for people with another set of chromosomes (note that we are only considering XX and XY, here; intersex people aren’t included in the language of this bill, presumably because they don’t poop, Kim Jong-un style), but I just want to briefly touch on one exception that says:
A person may enter “a restroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex” if they are “in dire need of urinating or defecating and such facility is the only facility reasonably available at the time of the person’s use.”
Hey, man… real quick… are you fucking kidding me, or what? How is this bill enforceable ever, at all, for any reason?! Sorry, I used the “wrong” bathroom because I really had to go and the other restroom’s door wouldn’t open. Yeah, no, I know you can’t really prove or disprove either of those things. Them’s the brakes, law boy!
Then I boop the cop’s nose and carry on with my day, unmolested by the absolute power all American police officers can exert upon anybody at any time with complete impunity.
Anyway, the bill is being fought in court by the ACLU, who are arguing that it is a very blatant and inexcusable violation of the 14th Amendment’s due process clause and equal protection rights. What is that worth in a post-post-Trump America, where government officials and officers of the court actively wipe their asses with the Constitution? Who can say! I’m no lawyer or legal expert, but a cursory glance at another section of the Idaho Code suggests that HB 752 shouldn’t have been written into law at all.
It’s possible a federal judge will implement relief for transgender Idahoans. It’s also possible that, if relief is provided, it will only apply to those named in this active lawsuit, unless or until it is broadened to become a class action on behalf of every transgender person in Idaho. Either way, it really sucks that we have to fight for our right to simply exist in public. It shouldn’t be permissible for ghoulish bastards like these Republicans to enshrine into law their belief that we are second-class citizens.
Here’s hoping the ACLU succeeds in their mission to stop BS like this from destroying people’s lives for no good reason.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
