Republican members of two Iowa House Judiciary subcommittees advanced two bills on Monday that continue the anti-LGBTQ agenda Gov. Kim Reynolds and legislative Republicans have enshrined in state law since 2022. As the hearings were underway, supporters of transgender rights and advocates for LGBTQ Iowans protested in the rotunda and halls of the State Capitol. […]
One Iowa
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Republicans advance bill with a ban on Medicaid funding for all forms of gender-affirming care
On Wednesday, Iowa Senate Republicans advanced a bill with a provision that would cut off funding for medical treatments for people with gender dysphoria, despite testimony pointing to a medical consensus that stopping access to such treatments can increase the risk of suicide among transgender people. This is the first piece of anti-trans legislation Iowa […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Pointless, unnecessary and unbelievably cruel’: Rep. Steve Holt proposes bill eliminating civil rights protections for trans people
Iowa would make history by gutting protections enshrined in its Civil Rights Act for almost two decades to make discrimination against transgender Iowans legal, if a bill introduced in the Iowa House on Thursday becomes law. HSB 242 would also alter definitions used in state law to eliminate acknowledging the existence of transgender people as […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House Republicans advance bill making it a crime to allow minors to ‘view a drag show’
Over 100 protesters gathered in the hallways of the Iowa State Capitol on Tuesday, chanting, “Trans rights are human rights” and “Hey hey, ho ho transphobia has got to go,” as lawmakers on an Iowa House subcommittee considered the latest bill targeting transgender Iowans. According to the explanatory section of HSB 158, the bill is […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House Republicans advance bill to extend ban on LGBTQ topics in elementary schools to middle and high schools
The ban on classroom discussions or lessons acknowledging the identity of anyone except straight, cisgendered individuals, imposed by Gov. Reynolds on K-6 Iowa schools in 2023, would be extended to cover all school instruction through the end of high school under a bill advanced by an Iowa House subcommittee on Wednesday. “This bill prohibits school […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Poll shows opposition to Gov. Reynolds’ proposal to change transgender Iowans’ birth certificates
A plurality of Iowans oppose Gov. Kim Reynolds’ effort to change how the state issues birth certificates in order to identify transgender people, according to a new Iowa Poll. In the survey of 804 adults conducted by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom, 49 percent opposed the proposed change, while 44 […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Hundreds declare ‘we will not go silently’ as supporters of Gov. Reynolds’ HF 2389 complain trans people ‘need to go’; bill advances
It’s funnel week at the Iowa Capitol, so by Friday a bill needs to be approved by a committee in either the House or Senate to be considered for passage this legislative session. It’s supposedly a fixed deadline, but it’s really just an observed custom, because there are existing exceptions for certain bills — such […]
Posted inCommunity/News
A bill protecting ‘teachers of faith’ from having to respect students’ or parents’ preferred pronouns advances as LGBTQ rights advocates rally
“They are trying to wear us down,” Courtney Reyes of One Iowa Action said about the raft of anti-LGBTQ legislation Republicans have introduced this year in the Iowa Legislature. “We’re not going anywhere.” Reyes, the executive director of the nonprofit that advocates on behalf of LGBTQ Iowans, was speaking at a rally in the Iowa […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Album Review: Elizabeth Moen — ‘For Arthur’
For Arthur by Elizabeth Moen The teenaged Arthur Russell left Oskaloosa in 1968. He was a musical prodigy (cello and piano), a hippie vagabond and a spiritual seeker. He moved to a Buddhist commune in San Francisco, passed his high school equivalency, then became Allen Ginsberg’s accompanist and perhaps lover. Five years later, he hopped […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Sharon Malheiro, attorney who helped win marriage equality for Iowans, has died
Sharon Malheiro, an attorney whose career of fighting “for the underdog” spanned decades and who secured some of the most significant civil rights victories in Iowa, died on Sunday night. Her death was announced on social media by One Iowa, the nonprofit advocacy organization for LGBTQ Iowans she co-founded in 2006. “Sharon’s legacy of service, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Hundreds rally for LGBTQ Day on the Hill, protesting bills ‘meant to scare us back into the closet’
Around 200 demonstrators filled the Capitol Rotunda to protest anti-trans bills making their way through the Iowa Legislature, and meet with their representatives. The rally was hosted by One Iowa, a nonprofit founded in 2005 to advance LGBTQ rights, and One Iowa Action, for LGBTQ Day on the Hill last Wednesday, Feb. 1. Courtney Reyes, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
One Iowa among organizations to benefit from Ariana Grande’s trans youth fundraiser
In light of the International Transgender Day of Visibility and recent anti-trans legislation proposed and passed in states around the country, pop star Ariana Grande announced on Thursday the launch of her Protect & Defend Trans Youth Fund, to support 18 LGBTQ+ organizations that are “providing direct services and advocating for the rights of trans […]
