A Cascade County district judge will decide in the coming weeks on issues in a case filed against a proposed anti-transgender bathroom initiative.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana sued the state of Montana and Secretary of State Corey Stapleton last October requesting an injunction to block CI-183 from going to the November 2018 ballot. The ballot proposal, created by the Montana Family Foundation, would require people to use the bathrooms for the gender on their birth certificate.

The injunction to block the ballot initiative from moving forward was filed in Cascade County District Court and arguments were heard Monday.

In December, attorneys for the state of Montana asked District Judge John Kutzman to dismiss the case because the ballot initiative had not yet been certified by signature-gatherers. The signatures have to be turned into county elections offices by June 22, and those offices will take four weeks to validate those signatures.

The ACLU challenged the motion, arguing the judge should not postpone an inevitable argument. Even if the judge dismisses this case because the initiative has not yet been certified, the ACLU would likely pursue the same case in the future if it did qualify for the ballot.

Additionally, ACLU legal director Alex Rate said the initiative was a "solution in search of a problem." Transgender individuals are already using the bathrooms associated with their gender identities today with no reported issues, he said. And for hypothetical criminal incidents the initiative seeks to address, there are already criminal statutes enacted to prosecute those cases. Read more via Great Falls Tribune