Missoula County is joining an ongoing lawsuit challenging a new state law that restricts the bathrooms that transgender Montanans can use.

“How appropriate to do this during Pride month,” Commissioner Dave Strohmaier said following a unanimous vote by his colleagues to join the lawsuit.

House Bill 121, sponsored by Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, R-Billings, is one of a slew of so-called “bathroom bills” that have popped up in state legislatures across the country in recent years. Signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte in March, the law requires strict segregation of public bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping areas based on reproductive and chromosomal biology. It also allows private individuals to sue public facilities or shelters that don’t appear to comply with the law.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana sued to stop the law almost immediately after it was signed, arguing that it is not only illegally discriminatory but also unenforceable, especially for intersex Montanans who may not know how the law applies to them.

A Missoula district court judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the bill in April pending resolution of the lawsuit — though that ruling came down after some institutions, including the University of Montana, had already taken steps to attempt to comply with the new law.

The county echoed the ACLU’s arguments in joining the lawsuit this week.

“It’s essentially impossible to comply with, and the Legislature knew that,” Missoula County Attorney Matt Jennings told the commissioners at their June 3 meeting, adding that he believed the intent of the law was to force people to “disappear from public life.”

Jennings, who has worked in the county attorney’s office for more than a decade, said he’s never encountered a case or lawsuit stemming from someone using a bathroom other than the one that corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. Joining the lawsuit could help the county get clarification on its obligations under the law, he said.

“The issue for Missoula County is the impracticability of enforcing this,” he said. “We’re supposed to take reasonable efforts. What are those? I have no idea. They’re not specified in the law. There’s no tradition or case law about the reasonableness of how you’re supposed to enforce biological sex use of bathrooms.”

CMC ends gender-affirming care

The Legislature has passed numerous bills in recent years restricting LGBTQ+ healthcare and expression in public spaces. Most have fallen to constitutional challenges — in addition to the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection provisions, the Montana Constitution contains a broadly conceived right to privacy that has repeatedly thwarted the GOP social agenda.

Still, a few bills that have passed remain unchallenged. These include 2025’s Senate Bill 218 and House Bill 682, which both seem to loom large in the background of Community Medical Center’s decision this week to end gender-affirming medical and surgical care for patients under 18 years of age.

SB 218, sponsored by Sen. John Fuller, R-Kalispell — who has carried several prominent LGBTQ+ restrictions in recent sessions, including gender affirming care bans — creates a private cause of legal action against medical providers who offer a variety of gender-affirming care treatments to minors if the treatment results in physical, psychological, emotional, or physiological injury.

HB 682, sponsored by Rep. Greg Kmetz, R-Miles City, establishes a two year statute of limitations for tort actions related to gender-affirming medical care and creates legal definitions for treatment. The law also says that insurance providers that cover gender-affirming treatment also must cover detransition treatments.

CMC announced that it would cease providing gender-affirming care to minors this week because of “recent regulatory changes at the state and federal levels.”

“This change specifically impacts medical and surgical treatments for those with gender dysphoria who are 18 and under and will go into effect on July 1, 2025,” the hospital said in a memo published on social media. “Services for adults 19 and over will remain in place. We regret any concern this may cause or impact this service suspension may have on our patients, their families and our community. In implementing this change, our top priority is ensuring a smooth transition of care for impacted patients and their families.”

CMC did not say in the memo which regulatory or legal changes led to the decision. But in an email to a concerned parent shared with The Pulp, a hospital spokesperson identified the two bills. A separate Montana Hospital Association memo from earlier this month said both bills have potential clinical implications, namely that “providers will question their desire to provide gender affirming care regardless of the interests or requests from their patients.”

In 2023, the Legislature passed a bill banning most gender-affirming care for minors. A judge ruled that law unconstitutional earlier this year.

The ledger #️⃣

$198,000

The sum of a settlement agreement approved by the Missoula County Commission earlier this week to resolve a lawsuit brought by employees of the Missoula City-County Health Department over lost overtime benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The county will pay the money to at least 51 class action plaintiffs.