Just a few days after Gov. Kim Reynolds introduced a sweeping bill targeting transgender and nonbinary Iowans, that bill is now eligible for a floor vote in the Iowa House. HSB 649, which the governor filed last Thursday, was approved by the House Education Committee on Tuesday on a party-line vote.
All of the committee’s 15 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, and all eight of its Democrats opposed it. It reached the committee on Tuesday afternoon after being approved by the Republican members of a subcommittee earlier that same day.
The provision of HSB 649 that attracted the most attention when it was introduced would have required Iowa driver’s licenses or non-operator ID cards list both “the sex designation of the person both at the time of birth and at the time the application is made.”
In a statement issued when the bill was introduced, One Iowa Action, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ Iowans, pointed out the potentially dangerous situations that provision would create for trans people, explaining it would “require transgender people to out themselves anywhere they have to present their ID (voting, picking up a package, buying alcohol at the grocery store, etc.)”
Before passing HSB 649, the Education Committee amended the bill to remove that provision. But that was the only change made to the governor’s bill.
A similar provision preventing trans Iowans from updating birth certificates remains in the bill. It requires that any reissued birth certificate requested by a trans individual has “a designation of the sex of the person both at the time of birth and at the time of establishment of the new certificate of birth.”
Republican Rep. Brooke Boden of Indianola said she couldn’t understand why anyone would object to the provisions requiring specially marked driver’s licenses and birth certificates for trans Iowans.
“What I hear from the trans community is that they’re proud to be trans, and I guess that that would be OK to identify that and make sure that your birth certificate represents those things,” Boden said.
The bill would have an impact well beyond creating a new restriction on transgender Iowans seeking to update their birth certificate to match their identity. It also introduces new definitions into Iowa Code that would have to be used in all laws and regulations.
The first section of the bill is titled “Statutory construction – sex and related terms.” It defines a female as “a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ‘ova’ and a ‘male’ as a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”
“The term ‘woman’ or ‘girl’ refers to a female and the term ‘man’ or ‘boy’ refers to a male,” the section continues.
HSB 649 classifies a person “born with a medically verifiable diagnosis of disorder or difference of sex development” as disabled and eligible for “legal protections and accommodations afforded under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and applicable state law.”
It would allow transgender people to be denied equal access to some facilities, declaring that the “term ‘equal’ does not mean ‘same’ or ‘identical. Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.”
The bill also changes how “vital statistics” are collected for “complying with state antidiscrimination laws or… [for] state public health, crime, economic or other data.” Not only would state agencies be restricted to just using the definitions in the bill, so would every “city, county, township, or school district.”
That would prevent cities, counties, school districts and the state from having accurate information about trans people and “erases nonbinary people from the law entirely,” as One Iowa Action noted in its statement.
“This bill will help us move in the right direction because without it, we are losing single sex spaces and resources, including locker rooms, athletics and even prisons and domestic violence shelters,” Denise Bubeck, representing The Family Leader’s church ambassador network, said when testifying in support of HSB 649.
The Family Leader is Iowa’s largest rightwing evangelical political organization and one of Gov. Reynolds’ key political supporters. So far, the Family Leader and Iowa Baptists for Biblical Value are the only organizations to register in support of HSB 649. The governor’s office and Iowa Attorney’s General Office have also officially registered in support of the bill.
Molly Severn, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, was the first person to testify in favor of the bill. She compared it to the ban on trans girls and women participating on school and college sports teams that match their identity that Reynolds signed into law in 2022.
“Just like the governor and legislature did with girls’ sports, this proposal protects women’s spaces and rights afforded them by Iowa law and the Constitution,” Severn said.
HSB 649 resembles the sports ban bill in that both were fast-tracked through the Iowa House with just Republican support. Both were also introduced for ideological reasons, and not in response to any reported problems.
Rep. Sharon Steckman, a Democrat from Mason City, asked Severn who Gov. Reynolds had consulted when drafting the bill. Severn did not answer the question, and instead responded by repeating the language the governor used in a statement after the bill was introduced.
“Women and men are not identical,” she said. “They possess unique biological differences. That’s not controversial; it’s common sense.”
Severn said the bill was necessary “to protect spaces for women’s health, safety and privacy that are being threatened, like domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers.”
Both the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence have registered in opposition to the bill.
Rep. Steckman summed up the feelings of her fellow Democrats when she said the bill “is feeding on a fear of the unknown.”
“I’m appalled that the governor would put this discriminatory piece of legislation forward targeting 0.29% of our population in Iowa,” Steckman told her fellow lawmakers. “Shouldn’t we be working on something more important in education?”
When the governor introduced HSB 649 on Feb. 1, it was immediately assigned to the House Education Committee. It was not clear why since a bill focused on changing the statutory language for state laws and regulation was assigned to that committee instead of the Administration and Rules Committee or the State Government Committee. Education Committee Chair Skyler Wheeler, a Republican from Orange City, answered that question on Tuesday.
Wheeler said he had requested the bill be assigned to his committee.
Wheeler has been one of the House leaders who has successfully pushed through the anti-trans bills and other legislation aimed LGBTQ Iowans passed in recent years. In 2018, when he was in his first term in the Iowa House, Wheeler explained his approach to his role as a state legislator to Little Village.
“My worldview begins with the Bible and taking it in its literal form,” he said in an email. “Using the Bible as my compass, I come to conclusions that life is precious, marriage is one natural man and one natural woman, taxes should not be overbearing, and the government’s job is to reward those who abide by the law and punish those who do not. As a state legislator, I will use the Bible as my starting point for making decisions on what legislation I should support and which I should oppose.”
At the end of the committee meeting on Tuesday, Rep. Steckman asked Wheeler to schedule another hearing on the bill to allow for more public comment. Wheeler said he would consider it.
