Planned Parenthood Celebrates Brave Idahoans Who Spoke Out Against Harmful Anti-Transgender Legislation

BOISE – Today, Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii (PPVNH) celebrates the people who bravely came forward to testify against the dangerous anti-transgender legislation, House Bill 500 in the Senate State Affairs Committee this morning. This bill, which would prevent student athletes from participating in sports according to their authentic gender identity, will resume hearing public testimony on Monday, March 6, at 8 a.m.

“For too long, LGBTQ communities have been among our nation’s most vulnerable. The majority of Americans support laws to protect our LGBTQ friends, family, and community members from discrimination, but the same can’t be said for the Republicans in the Idaho legislature. The hateful and discriminatory rhetoric from proponents of the bill only make us speak out louder,” said Mistie Tolman, Idaho Legislative Director at PPVNH. “We are inspired by their courage to testify despite exhausting attacks against transgender people from many different angles in this legislative session. Thank you for the powerful and courageous stance taken by Hewlett-Packard, Micron, Chobani, and Clif Bar who all agree legislation like this makes our state unwelcoming. We also want to thank Chris Mosier for his leadership on this issue. We will continue to fight against transphobia. We will not stand down.”

HB 500 is part of nationwide trend of anti-transgender legislation happening in statehouses across the country, with a direct correlation to the discriminatory policies pushed by the Trump administration. Similar legislation in South Dakota recently failed, but states like Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri, South Carolina, Kentucky and Texas are all working to pass discriminatory legislation that targets the transgender community from health care to birth certificates.

Planned Parenthood believes people of all gender identities deserve civil and human rights, including the right to high-quality, affordable health care and sex education that includes transgender people’s identities and experiences.