Boundaries of Belonging
April 13, 2026
On March 31, hundreds of Idahoans gathered on the Capitol steps to honor Transgender Day of Visibility. They showed up to be seen, to be counted, to claim their place in public life. Inside the building, Governor Little signed a law designed to push them out. House Bill 752 criminalizes transgender people for using public restrooms that align with their gender identity. A first offense carries up to a year in jail. A second offense becomes a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The law reaches beyond government buildings into private businesses: restaurants, hospitals, malls, museums. It takes effect July 1.
Think about what this means in practice. A traveler pulls into a gas station on a long drive and reaches for the restroom door. A teenager slips away from friends at the movies. A patient steps into a clinic bathroom before an appointment. Every one of us understands the ordinary need behind these moments — a need so basic, so human, that we have built an entire architecture of dignity around it. Walls and doors. Locks and signs. The understanding that this space is important and private. Under House Bill 752, what most of us never think twice about becomes a serious risk for transgender Idahoans. Not because they have done anything wrong. Because of who they are. This is not a minor policy adjustment. It is the state declaring that certain people do not belong in shared public spaces.
House Bill 752 does not stand alone. It is part of a broader pattern of legislation in Idaho that has, year by year, narrowed the rights of transgender people. In 2020, Idaho became the first state to ban transgender girls and women from school sports. In 2023, providing gender-affirming health care to transgender youth became a felony. In 2024, Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care was eliminated. Each law builds on the last. Each draws the boundaries of belonging a little tighter.
There is a word for what happens when policies steadily make life untenable for a group of people: elimination. We often associate elimination with catastrophic atrocities such as death camps or ethnic cleansing. But elimination can also unfold more quietly, when the state makes life so unsafe that people retreat from public life, hide who they are, or leave altogether. Transgender Idahoans and their families are being forced to make painful decisions to close businesses, leave jobs, and even leave the state.
This legislation echoes a much older chapter of American law. Beginning in the mid-1800s, dozens of cities and states passed laws criminalizing people for wearing clothing associated with another gender. For more than a century, these laws were used to police, harass, and jail transgender and gender-nonconforming people simply for appearing in public. The logic was the same then as it is now: certain people do not belong in shared spaces, and the state has the right to punish them for being visible.
But those laws did not stand unchallenged. Transgender people were at the forefront of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, a moment that helped launch a broader movement for civil rights and recognition. Cross-dressing ordinances were struck down in courts across the country. In 1993, Minnesota became the first state to ban anti-transgender discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and public services. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that federal civil rights law protects employees from discrimination based on gender identity.
At the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is etched in stone: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. That declaration is not a suggestion. It is the standard against which every law should be measured, including House Bill 752. Dignity is not something the state grants only to people who fit comfortably within its categories. It belongs to everyone. When a law denies dignity, we have a responsibility to respond.
Responding starts with listening — seeking out the voices of transgender community members to understand what this moment means for their lives. It means paying attention to the laws being passed in our name. And it means doing the daily work of building communities where everyone belongs: supporting businesses owned by marginalized neighbors, creating welcoming public spaces, and having the honest conversations with friends and family that this moment demands. Every signal matters. Every gesture that says you belong here pushes back against a law that says the opposite.
That traveler at the gas station. The teenager at the movies. The patient at the clinic. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, our children. They deserve to reach for a door without fear. That is what dignity looks like: the ordinary, unremarkable act of moving through public life. We owe each other that much. And we owe it to ourselves to be the kind of community that makes it true.