Iowa has now made history as the first state to erase parts of its civil rights code to strip protections from some of its citizens. Despite the enormity of cutting gender identity out of the Iowa Civil Rights Act — thereby eliminating rights of transgender and nonbinary Iowans that have been in place for 18 years — it only took Republicans a week to do it.
The last time the Iowa Legislature acted so quickly on such an important issue was in 2023, when during a one-day special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds, Republicans pushed through a bill hollowing out reproductive rights in Iowa by creating one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.
The bill ending Iowa’s civil rights protections for transgender people, HSB 242, was introduced in the Iowa House on Thursday, Feb. 20. It was passed by a subcommittee on Monday morning, and by the House Judiciary Committee on Monday afternoon. In both cases, only Republicans supported the bill, which was retitled HF 583 before going to the House floor on Thursday afternoon for a final vote. Once again, only Republicans voted in favor of removing trans people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, although five Republicans joined all the Democrats in the House in voting no.
The Iowa Senate moved even faster. Its version of the bill, SF 418, was introduced on Monday. It was passed by a subcommittee on Tuesday. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. On Thursday, it went to the Senate floor for a final vote. No Senate Republican voted against the bill at any stage, but every Democrat in the subcommittee, committee and on the Senate floor opposed it.
Iowans turned out in massive numbers at the Capitol to protest the fast-tracked elimination of transgender rights. On Monday, hundreds of protesters packed into the Capitol rotunda and the hallways. By Thursday, their numbers had grown and well over a thousand protesters called on lawmakers to oppose the bill and leave transgender rights as they had been since 2007.
Despite the record-setting size of Thursday’s protest and the flood of public comments submitted in opposition to the bill, it had been obvious since HSB 242 was introduced last week that Republican leaders were not interested in public input. And moving the bill as quickly as they did allowed them to attempt to limit public awareness of what they were doing.
The reason it was obvious that the elimination of gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act was going to happen quickly was because of who introduced the legislation. In the House, this was Rep. Steven Holt of Denison. He also chaired the subcommittee that approved the bill and sent it to the House Judiciary Committee, which Holt also chairs. The same happened in the Senate, where its version of the bill, SF 418, was introduced by Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Jason Schultz of Schleswig, who also chaired the subcommittee that considered it.
“If the majority party wants to get something through, they can get it through,” Rep. Sami Scheetz, a Cedar Rapids Democrat, told Little Village last week after the House bill was introduced.
Scheetz was the lone Democrat on a House subcommittee that unanimously rejected a bill to strip gender identity protections out of the Civil Rights Act. The two Republicans on that subcommittee — Charley Thomson of Charles City and John Wills of Spirit Lake — voted in favor on Thursday, even though this bill was more extreme than the one they helped kill last year.
After last year’s bill was defeated by the subcommittee, Gov. Reynolds introduced her own bill to undermine trans rights. It would achieve this by changing how state law defines gender and how birth certificates are issued, as well as prohibiting transgender girls and women from accessing bathrooms, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers that cisgender women use, as well as forbidding local governments and state agencies from acknowledging transgender people according to their gender when collecting data or preparing reports.
The governor’s bill was fast-tracked in the House last year, but died without receiving a floor vote because the Senate never took it up. This year’s bill incorporates all the provisions that were in the governor’s bill.
“What’s changed since last year?” Scheetz said. “There are more Republicans. It’s an ideological priority for the governor, for leadership in both chambers. Unfortunately, the Republican Party views attacking transgender people as a successful political weapon.”
Another thing that changed is that Iowa business leaders did not speak out in defense of trans rights this time.
As the Des Moines Register noted, the 2007 signing ceremony for the bill adding gender identity and sexual orientation to the Iowa Civil Rights Act took place at Principal Financial Group’s headquarters in downtown Des Moines. Principal executives and other major business leaders had lobbied in favor of adding protections for LGBTQ Iowans to the Civil Rights Act, arguing it was not only morally correct, but would also improve the state’s business prospects by making sure Iowa was welcoming to all. Business leaders also lobbied against earlier attempts by Republicans to strip away civil rights protections.
“But this year, Principal and other major Iowa employers and business groups have stayed silent,” the Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller wrote. Business groups and companies contacted by Gruber-Miller either declined to comment on the change in their position, or did not respond.
Holt in the House and Schultz in the Senate both argued that it was necessary to cut gender identity from the Civil Rights Act because official recognition of those rights could result in bills discriminating against trans people being struck down in state court. Both claimed that it is important to be able to discriminate against trans people in order to protect women and girls.
Holt, in particular, has portrayed transgender individuals as little more than boys and men who want to disguise themselves as girls and women, either to excel in girls’ and women’s sports or to act as sexual predators. (He does not seem to acknowledge the existence of trans men and nonbinary people.)
Those claims were echoed by citizens who testified in favor of HF 583/SF 418. Supporters of the bill also asserted that sex and gender are identical, and are limited to two, male and female, which are permanently determined at birth.
Going back to the 2022 bill banning transgender girls and women from participating in school and college sports on teams that match their gender, the Iowa Legislature has repeatedly heard from medical experts who explained that sex and gender are different, and gender is complex. Republicans have ignored that information, but on Thursday, they had a chance to consider the complexity of gender again.
After speeding his bill through the subcommittee and committee on Monday, Holt announced he had scheduled a public hearing on it for Thursday morning. At it, Taylor Layden of Urbandale spoke for the first time on the bill, asking lawmakers to vote and “protect the future of my 20-month-old daughter Eloise.”
“Obviously, my daughter’s not transgender,” Layden said, holding a photo of Eloise. “She does, however, have a genetic variance that would classify her as intersex, a term you may have heard but you may not understand.”
When Eloise was 14 months old, she developed a hernia in her labia, and as she was being examined, doctors discover that although Eloise has female genitalia, she also has testes and a 46 XY karyotype, like a boy.
“Externally, she appears completely female, but her internal sexual organs do not match,” Laydon explained. “Eloise is a beautiful little human, and everyone who meets her just gushes about how perfect she is. … She shows empathy for others in a way I didn’t realize was possible in such a tiny person.”
“I am terrified about what the future may hold for my daughter due to things beyond her control. Because of her genetic variance and intersex traits, I don’t know what gender Eloise will identify with when she gets older. And as much as I love having a baby girl, I will cherish and love and protect my child no matter how she identifies. I fear that the world will not be so accepting and loving.”
“HF 583 weakens protections for intersex Iowans like Eloise, and makes it so that she would be unable to change the sex marker on her birth certificate if she ends up identifying as male, despite the fact that we had no idea she had an XY chromosome when she was born,” Layden said. “This bill sets a dangerous precedent for discrimination against anyone who doesn’t fit into a gender binary.”
It was moving testimony for most of the people in the room, as was the testimony of Kayde Martin.
“Today I speak not just for myself, but for many transgender youths in Iowa. I was born on Feb. 27, 2007,” Martin said. “Today is my 18th birthday. I stand before you fighting for the same basic civil rights that every Iowan deserves.”
“It deeply troubles me that after 18 years of living here with my family, attending school, working, this is the focus of our state. I plan on attending the University of Northern Iowa in the fall, and I hope to live independently without fear of discrimination simply because of who I am.”
“I have heard some people talk about women’s rights, but I ask you all, why do women’s rights only seem to be defended when they are used against the transgender community?” Martin said. “Where’s the same outcry when it comes to women’s choices and their own bodily autonomy?”
Martin talked about having a Christian upbringing that stressed only God is capable of sitting in judgment of people.
“I want to be able to be the person I was meant to be, and the person God knows me to be,” Martin said. “Please don’t take my rights away simply because you disagree with who I am. Being trans is not a choice, it is a reality that you come to. And when you learn to understand yourself and love yourself.”
The 18-year-old finished by saying there was still hope that “we can agree to disagree like civil people, and avoid becoming more divided as a state.”
The hearing did nothing to slow the speed at which Republicans were moving, or cause any of them to ask for more time before taking the history-making step of diminishing the state’s role in protecting civil rights.
The floor debates in the House and Senate weren’t actually debates. Republicans sat quietly, as Democrats spoke out in favor of transgender rights. Holt in the House and Schultz in the Senate dismissed each objection Democrats offered, as well as three amendments Democrats proposed that would have prevented discrimination against trans Iowans in employment, housing and obtaining credit.
Holt repeatedly expressed annoyance that Democrats were saying Republicans were eliminating civil rights for transgender people just because they were eliminating protections for transgender people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. He stressed again and again that he believed it was necessary to change the Civil Rights Act to safeguard the discriminatory laws aimed at transgender people the legislature has passed in recent years. He claimed those laws were needed to protect women.
“I don’t need you to protect me,” House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst said, when it was her turn to speak. “I need you to protect all Iowans, because that is what we are here to do, to look out for our fellow Iowans.”
“My mom has a sticker at home that says ‘Equal right for me does not mean less rights for you,’” the Windsor Heights Democrat continued. “Rights aren’t pie. There are plenty of rights to go around. And I feel that we’re putting up a false narrative here.”
“I’m too angry to talk much more. I’ve watched it happen in this room. I’ve seen this for a few years now. I’ve seen it happen for the last few years now. I’ve watched the arm-twisting … I’ve watched you fight and cower. You know this is wrong. You know it is wrong to take away rights. And I want to congratulate you on your legacy of being the first ever to vote to take away rights from our fellow constituents.”
The final Democrat to speak against the bill was Rep. Aime Wichtendahl of Hiawatha. Wichtendahl made history last year by becoming the first transgender person elected to the Iowa Legislature. Before that, she had made history by becoming Iowa’s first transgender elected official, after winning a seat on the Hiawatha City Council in 2015.
“I must confess it pains me to be here today,” Wichtendahl said. “It pains me to see how the rights of an entire group of people can be so quickly and easily discarded. It pains me to hear the slander, the stereotypes and the fear leveled at the trans community. My community. My friends. And my family. My people.”
“People who just want to live their lives, to be themselves and to live free of fear. This is a fear that I have known.”
Wichtendahl said it was a heartbreaking experience to attend the House subcommittee meeting on Monday and hear “the most heinous stereotypes and slander leveled at transgender people. That we are all just vile people or predators who exist to harass and intimidate women. Or that our entire lives are just a kink or a fetish, or that our lives are a giant conspiracy of the pharmaceutical industry, or that we’re all just brainwashed or byproducts of a failure of upbringing. None of that is true.”
“We are human beings, we are American citizens, we are Iowans. And I will tell you personally, I transitioned to save my life.”
Wichtendahl talked about growing up in a close-knit family in a rural community. She attended a private Lutheran school through eighth grade.
“The kind that taught that men were men, and women were women, and America is God’s chosen country,” Wichtendahl “And yet, inside I knew that I was a girl from the age of 9.”
Wichtendahl said she tried to ignore that realization and hide it away.
“But every year that passed, the more I could not ignore it,” she continued. “I spiraled into depression and alcoholism. One of the few pre-transition photos that I still have is a picture of me and my son on his first swim.”
Outwardly, everything appears fine in the photo, but Wichtendahl said her smile was masking great pain.
“Every day I woke up, I thought about ending it all by stepping in front of a train. I transitioned to save my life,” she said, her voice growing heavy with emotion. “I transitioned because I wanted to keep having those deep, meaningful conversations with my mother. I transitioned because I wanted to keep playing video games with my father. I transitioned because I wanted to keep going to concerts with my sister. And I transitioned because I wanted to be a parent to my son, and to see him grown up. “
Wichtendahl went on to speak about some of the prejudice she has faced as a trans person, against which the Iowa Civil Rights Act offered at least some protection.
“This bill revokes protection to our jobs, our homes and our ability to access credit. In other words, it deprives us of our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”
“I bring this up because the purpose of this bill, and the purpose of every anti-trans bill is to further erase us from public life and to stigmatize our existence,” Wichtendahl said. “The sum total of every anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal, to force us back into the closet. If we want jobs or a place to live, we have to go back, is what they are telling us. Because the authors of these bills wish us every harm.”
The Senate had already passed its version of the bill before Wichtendahl began speaking. It was sent to the House where it was substituted for the House bill. After a long speech by Rep. Holt, in which he repeated the same assertions he’d been making all week, the vote was held. The bill passed the House, 60-35. It was sent to the governor.
Gov. Reynolds did not make any public comment on the legislation as it sped through the House and Senate. But there was really no doubt where she stood, especially after she introduced the bill to undermine transgender rights during the last legislative session. On Friday afternoon, Reynolds announced she had signed the bill into law, making Iowa the first state to eliminate part of its Civil Rights Act.
“I know this is a sensitive issue for some,” the governor said in a statement after the signing, “many of whom have heard misinformation about what this bill does.”
“The truth is that it simply brings Iowa in line with the federal Civil Rights Code, as well as most states.”
It was because federal laws and regulations didn’t offer strong protections for the civil rights of LGBTQ people that such protections were added to the Iowa Civil Rights Act in 2007. Although things have improved at the federal level, the Trump administration is already taking actions to roll back or eliminate protections for trans Americans.
Reynolds also did not explain why Iowans should find it reassuring that the level of civil rights protection in the state has been reduced to the level found in states like Alabama and Texas. She did repeat the standard Republican talking point advanced this week that transgender rights must be erased to protect the rights of girls and women.
“We all agree that every Iowan, without exception, deserves respect and dignity,” the governor said. “We are all children of God, and no law changes that.”
Religious rhetoric aside, the fact is the law has now changed in Iowa, and in a history-making way.
