Oh... They Are At It Again!

This time in Idaho not as punitive as Kansas but still another ant-trans bill that is designed to inflect pain in us and further marginalize us!

Idaho Republicans are trying to strip localities of nondiscrimination ordinances that protect LGBTQ+ people

The measure, which has passed the state House, would repeal more than 12 localities' protections against employment, housing and public accommodation discrimination.

The Advocate

Christopher Wiggins

Feb 27, 2026

Idaho Republicans are advancing legislation that would void local nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ residents in more than a dozen cities. Advocates warn that it represents not merely a policy disagreement but a decisive turn toward rescinding existing civil rights protections.

House Bill 557, which has already passed the Idaho House and now sits in the Senate State Affairs Committee, would prohibit cities and counties from adopting or enforcing nondiscrimination ordinances that extend beyond state law. Because Idaho’s Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation or gender identity as protected classes, the measure would not only block future local protections but also erase existing ones in 12 cities and two counties, jurisdictions that together encompass roughly 36 percent of the state’s population.

It seems like the Republican states are in a race to see who can come up with the most draconian laws!

“This specific bill we’re talking about, HB 557 would eliminate the ability of localities to pass non-discrimination policies protecting characteristics like gender identity or sexual orientation that are not currently protected under state law,” Liam Cutler, policy counsel for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, explained in an interview with The Advocate. The legislation “would also remove existing protections that are in place, essentially stripping those LGBTQ folks of the protections that they currently have under law,” he said.

The question is: why? Why do they do this to us? Is it just for votes?

Is it just for votes that they want to torment a whole community? Are they so callous that they don’t care what they are doing to people?

In the absence of statewide protections, local nondiscrimination ordinances became the fallback strategy. “So it’s quite an affront to us to not only see them being unwilling to add protections at a state level, but to very specifically introduce legislation that preempts cities from having those protections themselves,” Nikson Mathews, a transgender man and chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus, told The Advocate.

It is not the fact that the state now doesn't have protection but what got me was that they had it and took it away! It is that they are so heartless and soulless that they are willing to subligate a whole community just for votes!