Missoula joins ACLU's suit to block Montana's 'bathroom bill'
NEWS October 19, 2017
Missoula joins ACLU's suit to block Montana's 'bathroom bill'
By Derek Brouwer
The city of Missoula, a University of Montana student and a Missoula small-engine mechanic are among the plaintiffs in a new ACLU lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a ballot initiative that would dictate which bathrooms transgender people can use.
The suit seeks to keep I-183, the so-called Locker Room Privacy Act, off the 2018 ballot on the grounds that it discriminates against and "threatens the dignity, privacy and safety of transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex Montanans," ACLU Executive Director Caitlin Borgmann said during an Oct. 17 press conference in the Capitol rotunda. ... The case was filed in state court in Cascade County, where one of the 11 plaintiffs resides.
The suit is LGBTQ advocates' primary legal effort to block I-183. It comes on the heels of a separate lawsuit by the ACLU that forced a rewrite of the proposed ballot language to make its intent more explicit and delayed pro-initiative signature gathering.
The ACLU is bringing the suit on behalf of seven transgender and gender-nonconforming Montanans and two unnamed parents on behalf of their trans daughter. Two of the plaintiffs live in Missoula, including Acton Siebel, a 38-year-old trans man who works as a mechanic, and Elliot Hobaugh, a 19-year-old UM student. I-183 would require Hobaugh to use women's facilities on campus, instead of the multi-occupancy unisex facilities that Hobaugh feels safe using, according to the suit.
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