Idaho Governor Brad Little signed two anti-transgender bills into law yesterday, despite the global pandemic. The first, House Bill 500, bans transgender women from playing on girls and women’s sports teams at public schools and colleges. The law deems that to qualify as a woman you’d have to be examined for “reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously 19 produced testosterone levels.” The Idaho Attorney General, however, cautioned forcing genetic testing on athletes likely violates the constitution.

The second, House Bill 509, bans people from changing their gender on Idaho birth certificates. Back in 2018, Idaho tried passing a similar bill, but it was struck down.

Asaf Orr, of the NCLR, a group that fights for LGBTQ equality, said, “This is a heartbreaking day for these young people and their families, who have now been sent a toxic message of rejection and exclusion by elected officials in their own state.”

Aside from the pure cruelty and hatred within these bills, it also needs to be asked, why now? According to Johns Hopkins, there are currently almost 804,000 global infections of the new novel coronavirus. Why is a state focusing on trans people, when people’s lies are currently at risk? Furthermore, Idaho is currently one of the states with the fastest-growing rates of COVID-19 infections in the nation, so one has to ask, is banning trans people from sports really more important than keeping your citizens alive?