BOISE, ID – Tom Wheeler did not anticipate the inaugural Pride event he planned last June would inspire Idaho lawmakers to change the state’s indecent exposure law.

The Canyon County Pride president said the event was meant to be family friendly. But after an individual attending the event wore nipple pasties — despite requests from event organizers to put on a shirt — Idaho state lawmakers crafted House Bill 270 this year.

The bill updates the law to ban the public exposure of female breasts, male breasts altered to look like female breasts, artificial breasts and products resembling genitals. Gov. Brad Little signed the bill into law, and it’s effective immediately.

House Bill 270 is among several Idaho bills that received national attention for targeting LGBTQ+ rights, particularly for transgender individuals. Those pieces of legislation were a part of a larger effort by Idaho lawmakers to limit diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs; sex education; government display of pride flags; and medical treatment for transgender individuals — policies that reflect similar efforts by the Trump administration.

“It’s unsurprising, but it’s really disappointing that that’s how these Republican legislators are spending their time,” Wheeler told the Idaho Capital Sun. “They’re very obsessed with gay people.”

In his testimony against House Bill 270, Nikson Mathews, a trans man, said the bill would criminalize him for doing something as simple as mowing his lawn while shirtless. The Idaho transgender rights advocate said the 2025 legislative session was the “worst session” he’s experienced.

“Our community — every year, but I think this year especially — is getting smaller because there’s just so much uncertainty happening right now,” Mathews told the Sun. “It kind of feels like our futures are being stolen from us because of what is happening nationally and what is happening locally.”

He called the first pieces of legislation introduced this session — both of which targeted LGBTQ+ individuals — a “damning introduction” to the kinds of laws that would make their way through the Statehouse.

“This is our home and our community, and so we will stay as long as we possibly can,” Mathews said about himself and his partner. “But I’ll tell you, every single queer person — especially trans people in this state — we’re all planning for what is that line when we have to make a decision to leave.”

Anti-LGBTQ+ policies adopted in Idaho in 2025

Idaho Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise said the around two dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills considered in Idaho this year work together.

“The cumulative effect is with the intention to erase and not recognize human beings based on who they are,” she told the Sun. “And that is the definition of discrimination. So, this Legislature has embraced formal discrimination.”

Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, sponsored several of this year’s bills — but she said they aren’t connected. And she pushed back on concerns that the Legislature is making it harder for LGBTQ+ people to live in Idaho.

“Nobody’s making it harder for them to live in Idaho,” said Ehardt, a basketball coach who years earlier championed an Idaho bill that inspired other states to ban transgender kids from playing sports with students of their same gender. “They keep choosing to create and make themselves a victim. They’re not a victim. Just go to school. Be a normal school kid. Just study normal school academics.”

In addition to House Bill 270, the Idaho Capital Sun has compiled a list of legislation crafted during the 2025 legislative session that impacts LGBTQ+ individuals living in Idaho. The following bills passed largely along party lines in both legislative chambers, and were signed into law by Gov. Little:

Flags in schools

House Bill 41 prohibits public schools from displaying flags that represent political, religious or ideological views within school property.

Sponsors: Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle; Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton

Status: Effective July 1

Flags on government property

House Bill 96 restricts state and local government entities in Idaho to only display official domestic government and military flags. Schools, colleges and universities are exempt.

Sponsors: Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard; Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d’ Alene

Status: In effect

Transgender bathroom, dorm ban in state facilities 

House Bill 264 directs state correctional facilities, colleges and universities and domestic violence shelters to designate multi-occupancy restrooms, changing rooms and dorm rooms “for the exclusive use by either females or males.” The bill says those facilities must only be used by “members of that sex.”

Ehardt said the bill was inspired by a national workgroup that spawned from her bill years earlier to restrict transgender students’ sports participation.

The group, she said, included around 20 groups, including influential conservative organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom, and an anti-trans feminist organization, the Women’s Liberation Front, also known as WoLF.

In women’s prisons, Ehardt said the WoLF group became aware that “men were starting to identify,” a trend she said started in California but has happened elsewhere.

“If they watch what’s happening in the rest of the states, it’s only a matter before they start making their claim to be able to come to the women’s spaces,” Ehardt told the Sun.

“This legislation has absolutely nothing to do with the L, the G or the B. It only has to do with the T, and very narrowly defined,” she said.

Sponsors: Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls; Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins

Status: Effective July 1

Denying medical procedures depending on moral beliefs

House Bill 59 allows health care workers to deny participating in medical procedures that violate their religious and moral beliefs.

Sponsors: Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa; Sen. Carl Bjerke, R-Coeur d’Alene

Status: In effect

Requiring parents opt in to human sexuality education 

House Bill 239 requires parents or guardians to opt in to education on sexuality and gender identity.

The bill requires parental consent for teachings about human sexuality, incorporating an existing definition in Idaho law that includes broader sex education concepts. The law’s legal definition for abstinence includes sexual activities that can result in pregnancy, risk transmitting sexually transmitted diseases or infections; or present emotional risks.

Ehardt said she’d been working on the bill since her first year in the Legislature. She said she pulled the human sexuality definition largely from the World Health Organization. While the definition affects LGBTQ+ sexuality teachings, she said it wasn’t targeted at that — just “all things sexual in nature.

“The sex was rampant. It could have been, you know, heterosexual sex. It could have been homosexual. It didn’t matter,” Ehardt told the Sun. “It’s not necessary. The kids don’t need to be exposed to any of that.”

This year, she said she reached out to the Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative legal defense nonprofit based in California, for help crafting the bill’s civil cause of action. The bill allows school boards to cure potential violations before a parent can sue.

Sponsors: Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls; Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton

Status: Effective July 1

Restricting K-12 discussion on sexual orientation, gender identity

House Bill 352 directs school districts to adopt policies that ban education on “sexual orientation or gender identity” from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Sponsors: Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood; Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins

Status: Effective July 1

Another DEI ban

Senate Bill 1198 follows years of legislative efforts to purge DEI in Idaho colleges and universities. It will ban DEI in higher ed: Hiring, employment practices, and “promoting differential treatment” or benefits to people. And it stops higher ed institutions from requiring DEI classes outside of a degree program students choose, Idaho Education News reported.

Sponsors: Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d’Alene; Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale

Status: Effective July 1

Praising Boise State volleyball team for boycotting transgender player

House Concurrent Resolution 2 “reaffirms Idaho’s commitment to protecting female athletes under Title IX,” and it calls on the Mountain West Conference and the NCAA to revoke its policies allowing transgender athletes to participate in sports.

Sponsor: Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls; Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa; Sen. Cindy Carlson, R-Riggins

Status: Adopted by both legislative chambers, did not require the governor’s signature.

‘Traditional family values’ month 

House Concurrent Resolution 18 designates the time from Mother’s Day through Father’s Day as “Traditional Family Values Month” in Idaho. The legislation’s purpose is to “raise awareness” about the decline in “traditional families,” which according to the legislation consists of “a natural mother and father, children, grandparents, and extended family …” The resolution claims “research demonstrates children who grow up in families with traditional values and gender roles are more likely to have traditional values and gender role expectations themselves,” and says “there is an unprecedented attack on these beliefs” and their celebration.

Sponsors: Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene; Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d’Alene

Status: Adopted by both legislative chambers, did not require the governor’s signature.

Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that was introduced, but did not succeed

Other pieces of legislation that didn’t reach the governor’s desk or receive the legislative approval needed to move forward include:

Preventing youth from attending public drag shows

House Bill 230 would have required event hosts and organizers to “take reasonable steps” to restrict minors’ access to public performances that involve “live persons engaged in sexual conduct,” if such performances are “patently offensive to an average person applying contemporary community standards in the adult community.” The bill’s statement of purpose says the legislation “uses the same indecency standard utilized by the federal government to determine whether content is appropriate for daytime television.”

Sponsors: Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle; Idaho Family Policy Center, an organization that advocates for conservative Christian policies

Status: Passed Idaho House 54-11, did not receive Senate hearing.

A call to reverse same-sex marriage

House Joint Memorial 1 was addressed to the U.S. Supreme Court and pushed to restore the authority of defining marriage to the states. It asked the court to reconsider its 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage across the U.S.

Sponsor: Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard

Status: Passed the Idaho House, did not receive a hearing in the Senate.

Stepping into direct action amid anti-LGBTQ+ Idaho policies

Despite the passage of many of these laws, LGBTQ+ advocates are planning Pride events across the Gem State later this year, including pride celebrations in Coeur d’Alene and Nampa in June, and Boise Pride in September.

Wheeler said this year’s Canyon County Pride will be bigger than last year’s — and with more security measures. It will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 8 at Lakeview Park in Nampa.

“We’ve tripled the space,” he said. “We’re tripling the six-foot privacy fencing for security purposes. Half of our budget is invested in private security and safety precautions.”

There are 70 businesses participating in the upcoming event, Wheeler said.

“This administration and the times we are in have shown us that we really can’t rely on the institutions that we pay our tax dollars to to protect and support us,” Wheeler said. “It’s more important now than ever to just be involved in direct action. Canyon County Pride is that direct action. It’s a day to recognize how many individuals are in the community that really do exist and have these needs.”