For Immediate Release
June 18, 2025
Media Contact: Damon Sidur
[email protected]
BOISE — Attorney General Raúl Labrador today announced that challengers have dismissed their lawsuit against Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act. The joint dismissal of Poe v. Labrador ends all court injunctions and allows full enforcement of Idaho’s law protecting children from harmful, life-altering gender transition drugs and surgeries.
“No one has the right to harm children. For two years, my office defended Idaho’s common-sense law that protects kids from experimental procedures with lifelong, irreversible consequences,” said Attorney General Labrador. “Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act recognizes that children suffering from gender dysphoria need love, support, and medical care rooted in biological reality—not life-altering drugs and surgeries. With this lawsuit now dismissed, Idaho can fully enforce our law protecting children, families, and biological reality.”
Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act, passed in 2023, protects Idaho’s children by prohibiting doctors from providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transition surgeries to children under 18 to alter their appearance or affirm their “gender identity” when that identity differs from their biological sex. The law makes providing these procedures a felony, recognizing that children cannot consent to experimental treatments with permanent consequences.
In June 2023, activists and two families sued to block the law from taking effect. A federal district judge initially sided with the challengers, issuing a court order that prevented Idaho from enforcing the law statewide while the case proceeded. This meant doctors could continue performing these procedures on children across Idaho despite the state law.
Attorney General Labrador immediately appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In April 2024, the Supreme Court granted Idaho’s request, ruling that the lower court had overstepped by blocking the law for everyone in the state. The Court narrowed the injunction to apply only to the two families who sued, allowing Idaho to enforce its child protection law for all other children statewide.
Now, the challenger families have dismissed their lawsuit entirely. The dismissal ends the remaining injunction, allowing Idaho to fully enforce its protections for all children.
The dismissal of the Poe v. Labrador case coincides with the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 18, 2025, decision in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld the State of Tennessee’s similar law protecting children from these harmful practices.
Attorney General Labrador worked with Alliance Defending Freedom to defend Idaho’s law at every level of the federal court system. Idaho continues leading the nation in protecting vulnerable children and supporting parents in their obligation to guide and love their children.
About Raúl Labrador
Raúl Labrador is the 33rd Attorney General of Idaho. The Office of the Attorney General provides legal representation for the State of Idaho. This representation is furnished to state agencies, offices and boards in the furtherance of the state's legal interests. The office is part of state government’s executive branch and its duties are laid out in the Idaho Constitution.
