Idaho governor signs bill to ban required pronoun use

Idaho schools will soon be unable to require staff and students to use a transgender student’s name and pronouns under legislation signed this week by the state’s Republican Gov. Brad Little. 

Idaho House Bill 538, which passed the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature by wide margins last month, prevents K-12 educators and college professors from “knowingly and intentionally” addressing a minor by a name or pronoun that does not align with their sex assigned at birth without written consent from their parents. 

The bill also shields school staff from adverse employment action “for declining to address a student using a name other than the student’s legal name, a derivative thereof, or by a preferred pronoun.” State government employees are similarly not required to use a transgender person’s name or pronoun if it does not match their sex assigned at birth. 

Little quietly signed the measure into law on Monday. It will take effect July 1. 

GOP state lawmakers during this year’s legislative session said such laws are needed to protect against “unlawful compelled speech.” 

“This is a battle line we have to draw,” the bill’s sponsor, Idaho Rep. Ted Hill (R), said while arguing in favor of the proposal in March. “This is the battle line. It’s First Amendment rights and that’s the whole issue here.” 

State Democrats largely opposed the measure, arguing that the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of speech, is not meant to allow employees to act unprofessionally or discriminate against others at work. 

“We expect our publicly funded employees to adhere to a certain standard of respect and decency, and we expect them to refrain from being unkind, uncivil or discriminatory whether it’s to the public or to their coworkers,” Idaho Rep. Lauren Necochea (D) said last month. “Respectfully addressing people the way they are asking to be addressed is no different.” 

Little this week also signed legislation redefining gender as being synonymous with sex, making Idaho the sixth state to adopt such a law. Executive orders signed last year in Nebraska and Oklahoma also redefine sex in a way that LGBTQ advocates have warned will allow discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming people. 

“In human beings, there are two, and only two, sexes: male and female,” according to Idaho’s House Bill 461, which will also take effect July 1. “In no case is an individual’s sex determined by stipulation or self-identification.” 

Since being elected governor in 2019, Little has signed at least half a dozen laws targeting transgender people, including the nation’s first ban on transgender athletes. 

In March, Little signed legislation barring public funds — including Medicaid — and government-owned facilities from being used for gender-affirming care for transgender minors and adults.  

A law signed last year by Little makes it a felony for doctors to provide puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries to transgender minors, though the enforcement of the law is currently blocked by a district court’s orders. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador (R) in February asked the Supreme Court to take emergency action to allow the state to enforce its ban.