In many important ways, the bills passed by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds this year that targeted transgender students echoed the law enacted last year banning transgender girls and women from participating in girls’ or women’s sports at schools or colleges in Iowa.
Like the sports ban, the new laws weren’t drafted to address any real, existing problem. Just as there had never been a complaint about transgender girls playing school sports in Iowa, supporters of this year’s ban on transgender students using the bathroom or locker room that corresponds to their identity never produced any evidence of a problem. In both cases, they just appealed to imaginary fears of the sort stoked by Fox News.
Last year and this year, every medical, mental health and education expert who testified about the bills opposed them and explained in detail why they were damaging to the health and wellbeing to young people already at a heightened risk of depression and suicidal ideation. Last year and this year, the Republican majorities in the legislature and the governor ignored the experts.
But this year’s bills were different in a very important way — they were much broader in scope. Transgender kids were not just targeted in their school setting, they were stripped of the possibility of receiving medically-appropriate gender-affirming care in Iowa. The so-called “bathroom bill” applied to anyone who enters a school building, including adults. Nonbinary, gay, lesbian and queer kids were targeted along with transgender students in bills that restricted classroom discussions and school libraries. And the first bill Gov. Reynolds celebrated signing this year took money away from all public school students in Iowa to support private schools, including those with anti-LGBTQ policies.
The same people who pushed through with the sports ban in 2022 made wide-ranging and fundamental changes to how transgender kids are treated in Iowa and how schools operate in the state.
Gender-affirming care ban
SF 538 doesn’t mention schools, but it does affect school-age Iowans. The bill bans any prescribing of medications or any medical procedure as part of gender-affirming care for transgender individuals under the age of 18. All such medical care is done by properly licensed doctors with the consent of a patient’s parents or guardian, and is endorsed by all the country’s major medical organizations.
The American Medical Association sent Reynolds a letter before she signed SF 538 into law stating that it is “inappropriate and harmful” for a state to “limit the range of care for transgender children.” The governor signed the bill on March 22. Because of a provision included with her support, the new law took effect immediately, instead of July 1 as most new laws do.
Trans bathroom ban
The same day Reynolds signed SF 538, she also signed SF 482 into law. That bill bans anyone — student, teacher, staff member or visitor — from using a school bathroom or locker room that does not match that person’s “biological sex … as listed on a person’s official birth certificate issued at or near the time of the person’s birth.” Like SF 538, it was “deemed of immediate importance” and took effect as soon as the governor signed it.
SF 482 is a good example of how little thought Republican leaders put into the consequences of their anti-transgender agenda. Although it took effect immediately, the legislature did not provide school districts with any guidance on how to administer the new ban. Neither did the Iowa Department of Education, even though the ban had been one of the governor’s legislative priorities. School districts across Iowa were left to grapple with questions like, how do they determine what sex was listed on a visiting adult’s birth certificate if that person wants to use a restroom while at the school?
Restricting LGBTQ books, lessons and privacy
That lack of concern about consequences applies to the broader anti-LGBTQ agenda of Iowa Republicans as well. One of the provisions of SF 496, which Reynolds signed into law on May 26, bans books containing depictions or descriptions of sex acts from schools. Again, no guidance was given to schools from lawmakers or the Department of Education.
“In that vacuum of leadership, school districts are fearful and they’re putting out lists that are exhaustive and possibly exceed the scope of Senate File 496,” Urbandale school board member Daniel Gutmann told Iowa Public Radio after district officials released a list of nearly 400 books set for removal this fall. “It’s infuriating as a parent, it’s infuriating as an educator and it’s infuriating as a board member tasked with the oversight of a school district.”
The bill does contain one clear exemption. During debate, Republican lawmakers focused on LGBTQ-themed books — calling them everything from inappropriate to pornographic — but after it was pointed out that the Bible might run afoul of the book ban, Republican lawmakers amended the bill to exclude the Bible and other religious texts.
SF 496 also requires teachers of grades K-6 to ignore the existence of LGBTQ people. It prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction” of anything touching on sexual identity or gender orientation. Teachers will find themselves in a position of not just being forbidden from mentioning, for example, what made Pete Buttigieg’s win in the 2020 Iowa Caucus historic, but also having to worry about normal classroom discussions about student’s families, in case one of the families has two dads or two moms.
Perhaps the cruelest part of SF 496 is a provision that can drive a wedge between transgender and nonbinary students and teachers and school counselors they trust. If a student asks to be called by pronouns or a name that doesn’t correspond to the gender listed in official school records, even in private, a teacher or counselor is now required to report that request to a school administrator. The administrator must then inform the student’s parents or guardian of the request, and receive written permission before the teacher or counselor can address the student in a way that makes the student feel comfortable and respected.
Received a very stupid email from my kid’s school, owing to #ialegis cruel war against LGBTQ youth, that we have to complete a form to register their nicknames ahead of the school year. This is what we’re making schools spend time & resources on: pic.twitter.com/nuML6K6s8o
— Nick Covington (@CovingtonEDU) August 1, 2023
Moving public school dollars to private school tuition
But it was the first of the governor’s high-priority bills this year that has the broadest scope. HF 68, signed into law on Jan. 28, created voucher-style education saving accounts (ESAs) to redirect public school funds to private schools. It had been a top priority Reynolds had unsuccessfully pushed in previous years. The private schools are permitted to discriminate in ways that would be illegal for any public school in admitting students, including discriminating against LGBTQ students or students with LGBTQ families.
During the governor’s failed attempt to create an ESA program in 2020, One Iowa reviewed the policy handbooks of 176 of the then-181 accredited private schools in Iowa.
“Out of those… we found that 75 percent of Iowa’s accredited non-public schools were willing to discriminate against LGBTQ Iowans in some way,” One Iowa’s Keenan Crow said when he testified against HF 68 in front of the Iowa House Education Reform Committee.
All those schools are eligible to receive public funds under the governor’s voucher program, so now the tax dollars of all Iowans are going to support that sort of discrimination.
