The House has voted 53-16 in favor of HB 509, the bill from Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, to directly defy a federal court order and forbid Idahoans from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate to match their gender identity.
“We have very carefully considered and weighed the ruling of the judge in this regard,” Young said. She said she thought the decision should be up to the Legislature.
“No amount of hormones can change … a person’s biological sex,” Young told the House. “Surgery can imitate the appearance, but never the natural function of … biological sex.”
The Idaho Press reports that arguing against the bill, Rep. Linda Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, said, “My job is to protect all of the people in my district and the state of Idaho, not just people who look like me.”
Said Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, “All this bill does is picking on a vulnerable population. It’s not going to be successful. It’s going to be lost in court, and it’s just a losing lawsuit.”
Rep. Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls, said, “This is not a discriminatory bill. This is a safety issue for the state.”
HB 509 is the third bill considered so far this session regarding transgender Idahoans; a day earlier, the House passed HB 500 to ban transgender women or girls from playing school sports on teams that match their gender identify, and another highly controversial bill, HB 465, died yesterday in committee that sought to make it a felony for Idaho doctors to provide transgender care to anyone under age 18.
All House Democrats voted against the bill, along with two Republicans, Reps. Hartgen and Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg. The bill now moves to the Senate side, where it would need approval from a Senate committee, passage in the full Senate, and the governor’s signature to become law.
