BOISE, Idaho — Over 8,000 transgender and nonbinary people live in Idaho, according to estimates from the Williams Institute.

They include students, fast food workers, artists, cooks, readers, a prison worker, musicians and grocery store clerks. They’re karaoke junkies, video game players and runners. And they’ve been targeted by a series of laws Idaho legislators passed in the past four years that limit their identities in public life and restrict their access to medical care.

In 2020, Idaho lawmakers passed a first-in-the-nation bill that banned trans women and girls from participating in female sports. Since then, legislators have passed bills that bar gender-affirming care for minors; prohibit students from using bathrooms that don’t correspond to their sex at birth; ban public funds from being used for gender-affirming care; require teachers to get parent approval to use a student’s pronouns that differ from their sex at birth; and define gender as a synonym for sex. Several of these laws are caught up in litigation, but some have gone into effect.

Many Republican elected officials in Idaho have continued to dismiss transgender identities, and a few have grown more vocally opposed. That includes Gov. Brad Little, who last month stood on the Capitol steps and reiterated his commitment to protecting “female athletes” by supporting the law that banned transgender women from participating.

Idaho Statesman reporters interviewed 14 people in the Treasure Valley who have felt inhibited by the state’s laws or fear they soon will be.

“Most of the time, I’m scared sh-tless,” Bonnie Violet Quintana, a 44-year-old transgender woman who grew up in Idaho, told the Statesman. “I’m scared to take the trash out or go check the mail … and part of that is because of the legislation and the laws, and all the extra complications.”

These Idahoans told the Statesman unique stories about their evolving gender identities. Some started to feel off when puberty began, their bodies and sense of selves pulling apart. Others needed several more years before they had words or a fleshed-out conception of who they were. Gender dysphoria kept some of them quiet, disliking the sounds of their own voice. Several recounted feeling like they were trapped inside of a shell, their day-to-day reality lived at a remove.

Many described “coming out” — changing their clothes to reflect their new gender identities, starting on medication, or telling the world who they are — as a revelation.

The Statesman spoke with trans and gender-nonconforming people about the new state laws, their passions, their hopes for Idaho and their futures.

Quinn Carter, 18, Boise

An art student, Quinn’s room displays a menagerie of the paintings and drawings he produced during high school, at Sage International in Boise: A rendering of a chameleon sits above a bookshelf, while painted stars against a night sky cover another wall.

Perpendicular to a comfy couch hangs a self-portrait of Quinn seated and bent forward in a field, with flowers growing from his back — an image that reflects his feelings about his femininity as a transgender person.

Quinn enrolled in Reed College in Portland in August and said he wanted to leave Idaho because he doesn’t always feel safe here.

He turned 18 weeks before Idaho’s ban on gender-affirming care took effect in June. He said the transitional period — when trans kids dress in a way that reflects their gender identity but may still have trouble “passing” as their gender — leaves them especially vulnerable to being bullied. Quinn said after he socially transitioned, sometimes people driving by would yell slurs at him on the street, and once someone followed him home.

He said his life doesn’t revolve around being transgender but that without gender-affirming care, he was “getting stuck on the things that I couldn’t help.”

“It was like playing a piano that was slightly out of tune every single day,” he said, as he described how he felt living in a body that didn’t reflect his gender. “You don’t realize that it’s slightly out of tune because you play that same piano every single day. But it sounds so much better if it’s tuned.”

Shayne Cates, 19, Meridian

Shayne’s walls are covered with posters tied to pop culture: Marilyn Monroe, Tyler the Creator, a street sign of Abbey Road. The 19-year-old lives with his girlfriend and dog, Ollie. He loves art — all mediums, but mostly acrylics or pencils — and playing video games, “The Last of Us” in particular.

Shayne started on testosterone after he turned 18, which has transformed how he feels about himself.

Before transitioning, “I felt like I was trapped in some kind of shell that wasn’t my body or wasn’t my voice,” he said. “It was just very hard to be social at all.”

Coming out in his senior year was hard, though, as many of his peers started “walking on eggshells” around him, he said. Some even called him names.

But the changes over the past year, like developing a deeper voice, have made him feel much more comfortable. He studied art for one semester at the College of Western Idaho, and for now works at a fast food restaurant. He hopes to become a tattoo artist.

“I hear my voice and it just makes me want to talk even more, unlike it used to,” he said. “I’m able to go about my day-to-day sometimes without even realizing or remembering that I’m trans. I just feel like a normal guy, and it’s really nice … like I came out the other end.”

Isaac Craghtten, 22, Boise

Scanning amateur radio frequencies in their free time, Isaac once reached a radio operator in Italy and had a brief conversation. On an old-fashioned long-range radio like Isaac has, you can tell a person’s location by their call sign, which has a country-based identifier. Isaac’s high-frequency radio — they have a license to operate it — is powerful enough to reach across the ocean.

“It’s neat that, with a small little radio, you can do point-to-point communication with someone completely non-reliant on the internet (or) landline cables,” Isaac said. “You have to transmit blindly into a frequency, and some people will just be scanning across, looking for people, essentially saying, ‘I’m here; talk to me.’ ”

A security worker at the Idaho Department of Correction, 22-year-old Isaac is from Victoria, British Columbia, and moved to Boise last year to live with their partner, who is finishing their undergraduate studies.

During this year’s legislative session, Isaac testified at hearings about bills to ban public funds for gender-affirming care, make “sex” synonymous with “gender” in state law, and prohibit state employees from being required to adopt the pronouns a person identifies with.

Isaac is nonbinary and takes gender-affirming hormones, which their doctor ships from Canada. Their legal documents from Canada list their gender as “X,” as they prefer, but they were unable to do so on their Idaho drivers license.

“Being nonbinary just makes me more comfortable; it feels more correct,” Isaac said.

While state insurance covers regular blood tests needed for their hormone treatment, what gets covered in the future is uncertain, given the new law that bans state funds from being used for such health care.

Isaac said the culture in Idaho has been “demoralizing,” and they hope to leave soon. They have a pilot license and want to work for a commercial airline.

Idaho lawmakers target health care for trans kids

About 1,000 teens in Idaho are transgender, according to estimates from the Williams Institute, a public policy think tank at the University of California Los Angeles law school focused on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Medical treatments for gender dysphoria have become increasingly divisive in American politics and generally have a partisan split. In Europe, half a dozen countries have restricted gender-affirming care for children over concerns about insufficient scientific studies and long-term risks. But in the U.S., most major medical organizations recommend gender-affirming care, which refers to a range of interventions from therapy to puberty-blocking medications, hormone treatments and surgeries. Gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed on minors. Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, while broadly supportive of transgender rights, said this year it opposed such surgeries for children.

Republican lawmakers in Idaho who introduced and supported anti-transgender bills have repudiated or questioned the benefits of gender-affirming care and consistently diverged from the advice of major medical groups.

“You can never create the healthy sexual function of the opposite sex,” Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, said in a hearing, responding to claims about the mental health benefits of gender-affirming care. Other Idaho politicians have derided “gender ideology,” and asserted that medical treatments should be based “in biological reality.”

“When somebody comes to me, if a man born as a man wants to be called by a woman’s name, I’ll do that,” Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, said at another hearing. He cosponsored the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for those under 18, which refers to “gender mutilation.” “But I will not call him a woman, because it’s not the truth. Help me deal with that.”

Little previously told the Statesman he was not “being critical” of doctors, but that the “jury’s still out” on the health impacts of gender-affirming care and the state is committed to protecting children. But in an executive order last month, Little called gender-affirming care “harmful.”

In a letter this week, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, along with nearly two dozen officials in other states, challenged guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics over its support for gender-affirming care, calling its policy statement “shameful” and “deceptive.”

Young, Skaug, Labrador and Little’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

AlexaLynne Fill, 74, Nampa

At least once a week, AlexaLynne is out on the town at a karaoke bar. She’s a “karaoke junkie,” as she puts it. Santana’s “Smooth” is one of her favorites.

Born in the Midwest, AlexaLynne, 74, worked as a jeweler in Arizona before moving to Idaho 20 years ago. She’s had her share of brushes with mortality. In the 1980s in Michigan, she was inches from being killed by a passing train that tore off the front of her van. In 2010, she received a cancer diagnosis.

It was after that undercutting news, which came soon after caring for her ex-wife’s mother in hospice, that she made the decision to transition at the age of 62.

“Why am I waiting for anything? This is stupid,” she remembers feeling. “I could die tomorrow. … Nothing’s going to stop me from being who I think I need to be.”

Though something had felt wrong all her life, she first admitted that she identifies as a different gender in a phone call with her wife at the time. She asked AlexaLynne a simple question: “Did you ever wish you were a woman?”

“I just blurted out, ‘Yes, my entire life,’ ” AlexaLynne recalled.

When she came out, it changed her life. She stopped taking medications for her mental health. Her experience of the world around her, like trees on the sidewalk, became brighter.

“I’m so much more able to handle everything that comes to me now, I’m so much more engaged,” she said. “My body and my spirit, my mind — everything about me is integrated. I’m no longer watching this person going through life tethered by an umbilical cord.”

Every year, she attends hearings at the Idaho Capitol about transgender topics, an ordeal that she said leaves her feeling like a “basket case” for having to put herself “on display” and face questions from lawmakers. Sometimes it makes her want to leave the state.

“But I don’t have anywhere to go,” she said. “I don’t have family. The only family I have is my chosen family, and they’re all here.”

She also said she wants to stay to stand up for the younger generation of transgender people.

“I’m not going to let them win,” she said. “I’m staying because of the kid who needs to see somebody who represents … that there is a possibility to be somebody other than what society dictates. So I stay for that.”

Adelaide Herdt, 27, Boise

Adelaide shows up to The Community Center, a safe space in Boise serving LGBTQ+ people, every Sunday without fail. She helps facilitate the youth group, where she gives presentations about life skills and works to provide information in accessible and lasting ways.

She’s even there if Christmas falls on a Sunday, she said, because if you’re at The Community Center on Christmas, you’re probably having a hard day.

Adelaide was homeschooled in Nampa, where she lived in a small cul-de-sac with a handful of kids her age. In her early 20s, she started experimenting with her gender expression. She painted her nails and tried on heels and makeup. In college, she met a trans man for the first time.

“It was something that I was completely foreign to, because we don’t talk about that in Idaho,” she said.

She’s grateful she didn’t have to navigate being trans as a teen. She worries about the laws being passed that target trans and nonbinary youth. It can even be hard for them to find information, she said, because of school book bans and a state law that bars people under 18 from accessing books lawmakers believe are “harmful” to minors.

Since she transitioned, Adelaide said, she’s happier and more confident. Trans people, like anyone else, want to work a job they like and live in a home that’s comfortable. “I’m kind of still that video game-loving, Lego-collecting goofball that I’ve always been. I just wear heels and dresses now,” she said.

It would be nice to live in a state that isn’t as hostile to trans people, she said, but she wouldn’t want to abandon the people here. “Not all the people I know can (leave), and I don’t necessarily want to leave them behind,” she said.

Matthew Horner, 32, Eagle

During the pandemic, Matthew Horner, 32, found an art mentor and began collaging. It was a hobby that was easily accessible — all you need is a magazine or book, he said. It was also tactile, which worked well for him as a person with ADHD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. “It’s just a hobby that I’ve never quit,” he said.

Collages line the walls on his second-floor loft, and some of his favorites are framed. One depicts an internal battle he faced with his mental health. It shows a hoard of people standing inside a head as they try to scramble their way into the brain, while another group pours out of the mouth — a visual representation of feelings “spilling out” of him in therapy, and the difficulty of opening up.

When he’s not collaging, he works as a teacher in the Treasure Valley, spends time with his wife, plays video games and cares for his pets, two dogs and two cats.

“I’m just a regular guy,” he said. “And if people can separate that from me being trans and realize that trans people are just regular people, that would be great.”

Horner has lived in Idaho for 10 years and started medically transitioning in 2019. At the time, there wasn’t as much of a focus on trans people in politics. He said he hasn’t had a lot of negative experiences being a trans man in Idaho, but that he’s seen how the laws stoked people’s fear and hatred of trans people. In recent years, he said, he has started “passing” more as his gender, and has been more careful about whom he opens up to with the political climate.

Horner wants to stay in Idaho, but if a law is passed that restricts his ability to get testosterone, he couldn’t. “I can’t go back,” he said. “This is who I am.”

Juniper LaWall, 19, Boise

Beneath tousled brown locks, Juniper wore gold-colored glasses, cream-colored sneakers and a University of Arizona sweatshirt.

Standing underneath a covered bridge over a stream next to the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, where her mother is the reverend, the 19-year-old laid out her baking plans once she starts courses at a local culinary school next month.

“Short term, heck — let’s make a big cake,” she said.

Juniper primarily wants to bake, but she also cooks, sometimes making focaccia with her grandmother. She likes to cook pasta, too, but not with tomato sauce. She’s not a fan.

She has a penchant for epic fantasy novels, like Brandon Sanderson’s “The Way of Kings.” She’s written around 10 short stories of her own, and recently she’s been writing a storyline for the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. Juniper started on puberty blockers in her mid-teens, and began taking estrogen a few years ago. While she wants trans people to have easy access to medical care, she said she understands why there could be some qualifications placed on treatments for youth, to give kids enough time to understand what they’re embarking on.

“I started to question my gender identity when I was like 12 or 13, but it took those two years to really piece it out, and be like: ‘OK, this is where I am. This is how I want to move forward,’ ” she said. When she experienced the first effects of puberty, “all of a sudden, my body felt foreign to me.”

She called the journey “like digging through a box of labels and seeing which ones stuck and which ones just kind of fell off.”

Does she think she’s found the right label?

“I definitely do,” she said.

Nikson Mathews, 40, Boise

Moving away from Boise for six years was one of the best decisions Nikson made, they said.

They grew up in Idaho and didn’t come out as trans until they were in their 30s. Shortly after, Nikson relocated to Seattle, where they said at the time they could “live more authentically and freely.”

“I was afraid of what might happen here in Idaho,” they said.

For a long time, Nikson didn’t have the language to communicate how or why they felt the way they did. They saw Laverne Cox, who is transgender, in a TV show and realized that identity resonated with them. “It was kind of like this moment where I woke up,” they said.

But transitioning was scary. They’d walk down the street and people would yell slurs at them, Nikson said, and hear comments about them at the grocery store.

“Nobody should ever have to be forced out of their state,” they said.

When they got more confident in themselves and their trans identity, they came back to Idaho, the home they love, with a mission to make the space more welcoming and supportive. They work with Add the Words Idaho, a campaign to get lawmakers to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the classes protected against discrimination in state law, and are working to rebuild the Democratic queer caucus to get more representation in politics.

In their free time, they love creating all kinds of art, spending time with their partner and playing with their German shepherd-Pit bull mix, who “keeps us on our toes,” Nikson said.

After transitioning, they feel confident and settled, they said. Despite the harassment, transitioning made them much happier. They often introduce themselves as “your happy, fulfilled trans neighbor.”

“Being trans is a joyful experience,” they said.

Bonnie Violet Quintana, 44, Boise

About seven years ago, Bonnie Violet lost one of her friends to suicide. He was a “beautiful drag queen,” she said. Bonnie Violet had always been a fan of drag, but had never done it before.

“I just was always too scared, waiting for the right moment,” she said. “And his death just really was just like, ‘Girl, what are you waiting for?’”

Shortly after, she performed “Praying” by Kesha in drag for the first time as a tribute to her friend during a fundraiser for those recovering from addiction. She knew she wanted to keep doing it. Now, her signature look includes rhinestones — always on her lips. Once she spent hours meticulously covering her whole face with them. She said she loves the way “people light up” when they see her.

“I’m just sparkly as heck,” she said.

About a year and a half ago, she returned to Idaho, where she grew up as a queer teen and got HIV. At one point, she said, it felt like her life didn’t matter anymore.

“I was just going to die, and all of the hopes and dreams myself and my family and God had for me were nothing,” she said. In her early 20s, she started an organization dedicated to people with HIV and AIDS in Idaho, and continued that work when she moved to Chicago.

After living in San Francisco and traveling the country, Bonnie Violet said she returned to Idaho as an act of gratitude. She’s lost over a dozen friends to overdose, suicide, HIV or other causes, she said. She thinks they felt stuck here.

Bonnie Violet said she feels lucky she was able to get away, to find herself, let go of drugs and alcohol and feel good about her place in the world. Now, she added, it matters more for her to exist in Idaho.

“Nobody should have to leave home to be OK and to be who they are,” she said.

Bonnie Violet said she tries to focus on creating moments of joy. She helped to plan the first official trans march during Boise Pride Festival that drew several hundred supporters. She spends time with her niece. She preaches in drag as a queer chaplain and creates podcasts, including one that features her aunt, a conservative Christian, and discusses their relationship as they reconnect.

She’ll never stop creating those moments of joy, she said.

“They try to keep us from existing,” she said. “And joy — joy is one thing they can’t really take away.”

Liliana Rauer, 17, Eagle

Liliana ran on her varsity boys cross country team her freshman year and competed in the Idaho cross country state championships.

“Running makes me feel free,” she said. “I just get to go as fast as I want. There’s kind of this feeling of almost flying.”

But by the time she transitioned, after her sophomore year, Idaho had banned transgender girls from participating in female sports. Though a lawsuit delayed implementation of the law, Liliana quit cross country because of the prohibition. She’s now the captain of the Science Bowl team.

She still runs after school nearly every day with her dog, Indy. They’ve finished half-marathons together and sometimes go for long runs on the Greenbelt.

She said her favorite subjects are physics and math because they are like a puzzle you have to solve.

“A lot of math is traditionally taught that there is one right answer or wrong answer,” she said. “But the more I have learned about math and experienced it, the more I’ve realized that there are sometimes no right answers, and that it’s really about trying to figure out the concepts of what makes a best answer.”

With Idaho’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in place, Liliana, now 17, is seeking treatment outside of Idaho.

“Even if I look a little bit different, or if my needs are a little bit different, I’m still a person,” she said. “And I still need the same rights that everybody else does, whether it is being able to use my preferred name or pronouns or have the same access to health care that everybody else does.”

Mani Rivers, 42, Meridian

When Mani put on his drag king makeup for the first time three years ago, he cried. He saw his face for the first time as a man and realized he was a Two-Spirit.

“I remember looking in the mirror and saying, ‘There you are. I finally see you,’ ” he said.

Two-Spirit is a term used in some indigenous communities, and while it can have different meanings, for Rivers, it means he is both a man and a woman. He goes by both he and she pronouns.

The 42-year-old said indigenous Two-Spirits are spiritual leaders, healers and the decision makers in their communities.

Through drag and other ways, he said he’s determined to bring awareness to injustices. He dedicated one of his drag performances in Boise to missing and murdered indigenous women.

Rivers said he has watched his trans and nonbinary friends impacted by Idaho’s laws and has advocated for their right to exist. He knows what it’s like to be harassed on the street because of how he looks, he said.

At Kathryn Albertson Park in Boise this month, he marveled at deer just steps from the path that watched the park visitors make their way through the trails. He pointed to the ducks and geese floating together in harmony, in awe of Idaho’s nature. He named himself Rivers because water is healing to him.

Mani left the state several years ago because he didn’t feel safe, but he moved back about three years ago, in part because he felt like this is where he’s needed. But he worries about the future here.

“It’s exhausting not knowing if you’re going to get shot today because of who you are, if you’re going to get beat up because of who you are,” he said. “I came back, because right now, this is where I’m needed and this feels like home.”

Peyton Shollenbarger, 26, Boise

Peyton has adored music and concerts for as long as they can remember.

As the acting vice president of the Boise Trans Collective, they book shows and play their own music, sometimes in the basement of their house, a space lined with twinkle lights and displaying a trans flag. The collective raises money through its concerts and shows, which is used to help trans people with rent, prescriptions or other needs. The music scene has “never been more safe and welcoming for the queer community,” they said.

Peyton was a bit late to “cracking my egg,” they said, a term used for the moment someone realizes they identify as trans.

Peyton said receiving gender-affirming care helped them get in touch with a “previously unobtainable feeling of who I should have been.” But because of Idaho’s ban on Medicaid for gender-affirming care, they pay over $150 every month for hormone replacement therapy.

They said they also face harassment. People have called them a “freak” when they’re walking down the street in Boise, Peyton said. They often hear from young people feeling ostracized — especially with new Idaho laws in schools that require parental consent for pronoun or name changes.

“No one feels safe, and that’s so disheartening,” Peyton said, “because all we want to do is just be ourselves.”

But Peyton loves Idaho’s strong, tight-knit queer community. “It’s the only strength we have, is strength in numbers, and that’s so important and so beautiful,” they said.

Adam Thompson, 19, Boise

Adam has recently rediscovered his love of books. He read a lot as a kid, but mental health issues relating to social pressures and trying to figure out who he was in high school made him lose that passion for a stint.

The 19-year-old found comfort again in the stories that created new worlds for him. “Gender Outlaws,” a book of narratives from gender-nonconforming people, was one he recently read after finding it in a Pride display at a bookstore.

“To hear the stories from the ’70s and ’80s is just very empowering,” he said. “It’s crazy to see how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.”

Adam volunteers in the library at The Community Center in Boise, a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, which houses 3,000 books with queer stories and authors. A student at Boise State, Adam hopes to go into library sciences. Though he wants to leave the state for the rest of his schooling, Idaho is his home.

“I really want to live here,” he said, but for now it’s “not quite safe for me.”

Adam became aware he identified as another gender in middle school. But shortly after, he went back into the closet, where he remained until the end of high school. He said he could see how unwelcoming Idaho schools were for trans and nonbinary people.

Adam described the period before transitioning as like wearing clothes that were too small. It didn’t feel right and he wanted to change. Now, he feels open and free, like he can be himself and “wear the clothes that fit,” he said.

Xander Trexler, 17, Eagle

Arching his forefinger out of a closed fist, Xander held his right hand up close to his temple, alongside gold-rimmed glasses and a shock of red hair, to sign his name.

Most days, Xander, 17, goes for half-hour walks in his neighborhood, listening to podcasts about science and medicine, and pondering their implications. Two of his favorites are “Ologies” and “This Podcast Will Kill You.” As a deaf person, he listens with headphones, or can stream the sound wavelengths directly to his cochlear implant.

After high school he plans to apply to Boise State University’s bachelor’s in nursing program and become an Idaho nurse, a field where he expects he’ll encounter other queer people at work. He wants to be “a breath of fresh air” for marginalized patients, adding that he is also Latino and autistic.

“If I were not so fortunate to have the family and the resources that I do, I don’t know what I would do,” he said. ”It’s a rough world out there for marginalized people.”

When he’s not in class or bagging groceries at his job, Xander is part of Eagle High’s American Sign Language club, where he helps organize events for the deaf community. Xander said gender-affirming health care has been life-saving for him, reversing an anorexic eating disorder that stemmed from his gender dysphoria, since he wanted to be “more lean and masculine.” He started on puberty blockers when he was 14 and began taking testosterone at 15, which has made him feel more confident in himself.

“The fact that I was able to get on testosterone so early and have something to look forward to, I guess, it just changed everything,” he said. “I feel good about the way that I look, feel good about my body, and I can feed myself now. It truly changed my life.”

Democrats oppose anti-trans laws

Democrats have opposed the state’s limits on transgender rights. Democratic Party Chair Lauren Necochea told the Statesman by email that the laws are an effort to “demonize” trans people “for political gain” and threaten doctors with prison sentences. Trans people should have the same rights as everyone else, she said.

“It’s outrageous for politicians to deny parents the right to listen to their children and block them from authorizing evidence-based medical care they choose for their children,” she said.

In a public appearance on the Capitol steps last month, Little stood next to Riley Gaines, a former competitive swimmer who advocates against trans girls and women competing in women’s sports, and accused the Biden administration of a “radical redefinition” of gender in its latest Title IX rule, which expanded sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The rules have not gone into effect in Idaho.

Twenty-three states have passed laws protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination, according to the ACLU, a civil rights group. But the movement to limit trans rights has spread across the country in recent years. Over two dozen states have passed bans on gender-affirming care, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit.

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