the documentation says it is the equivalent to

if (showOrHide) {
  $('#foo').show();
} else {
  $('#foo').hide();
}

but if showOrHide = 1, toggle will not show it because it is checking for a boolean type at line 7498 in jquery 1.5.1

toggle: function( fn, fn2, callback ) {
    var bool = typeof fn === "boolean";

my simplified code looks something like this when i ran into the problem:

function toggleSection(show) {
    //bunch of stuff based on show
    $('.something1').toggle(show);
}

toggleSection($('.something2:checked').length);

my work-around is to always remember to check against true

$('.something1').toggle(show == true);