By Dani E., Iowa City
Iowa lawmakers are once again wasting legislative effort and taxpayer dollars pushing anti-LGBTQ bills rooted in ideological fiction. One of the latest, SF 156, is a “bathroom bill” similar to the school bathroom restrictions enacted in March 2023. It is one of roughly a dozen anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in the Iowa legislature so far this year. What sets SF 156 apart, however, is that it doesn’t just target transgender Iowans — it makes a mockery of lawmaking itself.
Much like Trump’s executive order defining sex based on reproductive cells “at conception,” this bill attempts to define biological sex as “the biological condition of being male or female” based on an individual’s “chromosomes, sex organs, and endogenous profiles.” While the bill’s definition is flawed in many ways, the phrase “endogenous profiles” stands out for its utter meaninglessness. It is a clumsy attempt to disguise bigotry in scientific jargon and a glaring display of incompetence.
In scientific contexts, an endogenous profile could refer to gene expression, hormone levels, metabolic markers, or any number of other internal biochemical characteristics. Without specifying what is being measured, the phrase is too vague to serve as a legal definition of sex. Charitably, one could assume they intended to reference an individual’s reproductive hormone levels, but hormonal levels fluctuate and are not a definitive marker of sex.
Iowa legislators’ misuse of scientific terminology here clarifies only that they either do not understand the laws they write, or they simply do not care that they are distorting science to justify discrimination. Iowans deserve better than lawmakers who prioritize performative cruelty over governance.
Perhaps the representative who introduced this bill should reconsider one of her other proposals: requiring parental permission for schools to teach human development.
