Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) signed a bill into law Monday that made his state the first in the nation to protect women’s sports from transgender athletes.
The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act (HB 500) bans males who claim to be female from competing on girls’ and women’s athletic teams in public K-12 schools, colleges and universities.
At the same time, Little signed into law HB 509, which prohibits changes in gender on birth certificates.
Supposed supporter of women’s rights Planned Parenthood condemned Little for signing the bills into law.
“We condemn Governor Little’s actions and the actions of dozens of Idaho legislators who are so focused on pleasing their bigoted base instead of doing what is right,” said Mistie Tolman, Idaho director of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii, in a statement.
Tolman added Little “discriminated against thousands of Idahoans” by preserving women’s sports for women and girls alone, and referred to Idaho as “one of the cruelest states in the country for LGBTQ people, especially transgender people.”
GLSEN, an LGBTQ activist group whose goal is to bring its ideology into public schools, tweeted the new law is an “egregious violation of the rights of Idaho’s transgender and gender non-conforming/nonbinary students”:
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign LGBTQ activist organization, tweeted Idaho’s new law is a “travesty of justice”:
LGBTQ rights group Lambda Legal threatened to sue Little, as did the ACLU of Idaho, which said some “will not forget this decision or what it says about the governor’s priorities during a global pandemic.”
“The ACLU will see the governor in court,” the left-wing group said.