In Des Moines, Iowa, legislators are gearing up for a significant vote on Thursday regarding a controversial bill aimed at altering the state’s civil rights protections. This legislation proposes the removal of gender identity as a protected category, sparking concern among opponents who argue it could lead to discrimination against transgender individuals in areas like employment, housing, education, and public accommodations.
Introduced just last week, the bill has swiftly moved through the legislative system, despite fierce resistance from LGBTQ+ advocates. These supporters gathered at the Capitol earlier in the week to voice their dissent and are expected to return in large numbers for a public hearing lasting 90 minutes.
Iowa’s current civil rights provision offers protection against discrimination on various fronts, including race, color, creed, and gender identity, among others. Not originally part of the state’s Civil Rights Act of 1965, both sexual orientation and gender identity were incorporated in 2007, thanks to a Democratic majority and some Republican allies.
Proponents of the new bill claim that the 2007 inclusion was misguided. They believe it wrongly legitimized the concept of gender transition and allowed transgender women access to female-designated spaces, such as bathrooms and sports teams, which they argue should be exclusive to individuals assigned female at birth.
The bill aims to eliminate gender identity from the list of protected classes and seeks to distinctly define male and female. It also plans to equate gender with biological sex, negating any correlation with gender identity, experienced gender, expression, or roles.
Given the strong Republican presence in both the Iowa House and Senate, the bill faces a probable path to approval before landing on the desk of Republican Governor Kim Reynolds.
Iowa is among several Republican-majority states that have implemented laws to restrict the participation of transgender students in sports or their access to certain public facilities. State Republicans assert that this proposed legislation is aligned with those ongoing efforts.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, around half of the states in the U.S. provide gender identity protections within their civil rights codes. Meanwhile, some states rely on legal interpretations to cover such discrimination indirectly.
Iowa’s Supreme Court has previously dismissed the notion that sex-based discrimination protections automatically include those based on gender identity. Logan Casey, a policy expert at the Movement Advancement Project, notes that if enacted, this Iowa bill would be unprecedented in removing explicit nondiscrimination protections tied to gender identity.
In a broader context, various Republican-led legislatures are seeking to legislate definitions of male and female based on natal reproductive organs in response to an executive order previously issued by President Donald Trump. Trump’s administration also aimed to introduce policies limiting transgender military service and sports participation, many of which are currently facing legal challenges.
