23 | OutBoise Magazine | 2015 Pride Guide
outboise.com | Issue 8.2 | June 2015
More than Politics: The struggle to “add the words” in Idaho
by James Tidmarsh
If you are gay, bisexual or transgender in
Idaho, sadly, silence often plays a big part of your
daily routine. You carefully weigh every decision to
reveal your sexual orientation or gender identity to
your neighbors, co-workers and sometimes even
your friends and family, especially if you live in a
more rural area. With recent court rulings allowing
for same-sex marriage and dating apps like Grindr,
it’s sometimes easy to forget that, in many parts
of Idaho, you could still be legally fired from your
job, be denied housing or be refused service in a
restaurant simply for being who you are. Sometimes those very real dangers create stifling closets
of silence on their own.
For over ten years now several organizations
in Idaho have been working to change that. From
collecting stories of individuals who have been
fired or faced other discrimination based upon
their gender identity or sexual orientation to petitioning state lawmakers to amend Idaho’s Human
Rights Act, the movement began to gain public
attention in 2011 with the founding of Add the
Words, Idaho.
After years of lawmakers denying the very
existence of the toxic environment such discrimination has created in Idaho, a group of individuals posted sticky notes on the Senate State Affairs
Committee doors asking the Chairman to allow a
public hearing on the bill to add the words “sexual
orientation and gender identity” to the act. The
following year, thousands of sticky notes poured
in from across the state. Add the Words leaders
posted the notes around the capital in hopes that
lawmakers would finally end their silence on the
harm being committed in towns and cities across
the state. Rallies and vigils were held across the
state. Most lawmakers refused to even acknowledge the pleas, let alone the problem itself.
At the start of the 2014 legislative session,
following a rash of incidents that included crimes
targeting the gay and transgender community
as well as a handful of recent suicides, a group
of individuals calling themselves “Add the Four
Words” arrived at the capital with the intent of
forcing lawmakers to deal with the growing problem. Led by Idaho’s first