In a surprising twist that reveals far more than just bathroom policies, a federal judge appointed by President Biden has blocked Idaho’s law requiring biological males to use men’s facilities and biological females to use women’s facilities in government buildings. Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s ruling leans heavily on fourteenth-century equal-protection claims while sidestepping the physical-safety realities that Idaho legislators built into the law—safety considerations rooted in prisons, shelters, and schools where statisticians still see far higher rates of male-pattern violence. 2A defenders should taking notice: this decision illustrates how federal judges appointed in recent years are willing to override democratically passed state measures protecting women’s spaces, just as they are ready to chip chip-chip away at shall-issue concealed carry laws and shall-issue concealed carry after Bruen.

The Idaho