On Feb. 28, the Governor of Iowa signed a bill removing gender identity as a protection from the state’s civil rights code. Here’s a breakdown of what this means for trans rights.
History of Gender Identity and Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in schools and public facilities, and it also makes employment discrimination illegal for protected groups. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says that employers can’t discriminate on the basis of, “race, color, religion, sex and national origin.”
In 2007, Iowa put civil rights protections in place for transgender people. In 2020, the ruling in the Supreme Court Case, Bostock v. Clayton County, said that The Civil Rights Act includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected groups that can’t be discriminated against in employment.
What’s Happening in Iowa?
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill that no longer recognizes gender identity as part of a protected group in the civil rights code. However, the bill maintains protections for gay and lesbian citizens.
This means that employers, businesses and landlords can discriminate against transgender people because they will no longer be a part of protected groups.
Those against the bill say this will open up transgender individuals to discrimination. During one of the debates, State Representative Beth Wessel-Kroeschell said that this bill “creates a caste system” where trans citizens in Iowa don’t have the same set of rights as other citizens.
According to the New York Times, Republicans said that they were worried that state laws restricting transgender people participating in sports and transition treatments for minors could face lawsuits if the state continued to guarantee civil rights for gender identity.
Gov. Reynolds said that it’s important to recognize the biological differences between men and women. Reynolds said, “In fact, it is necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls.”
According to the Associated Press, in 2024, Reynolds proposed a similar bill, but it never made it to a vote in the House or Senate.
Now that the bill has been signed by Gov. Reynolds, the law is set to go into effect on July 1, 2025.
Reactions to the Removal
After the bill passed the House and the Senate, President Trump posted his support for it on Truth Social.
Aime Wichtendahl, a State rep. for Iowa, spoke about her experience as a transgender woman before the final vote. Witchendahl also said that the bill is removing protections for trans people to have access to jobs, homes and credit.
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. The sum total of every anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal. – Wichtendahl
On March 8, USA Today released an article about how transgender individuals around the country feel about recent anti-trans legislation. The publication interviewed Jane Haskell, a trans woman who is a director for SAGE, a national organization serving older LGBTQ individuals. Haskell recommended that people who are worried about anti-trans laws should take notes from trans elders.
Transgender people have been leading the LGBTQ rights movement for a long time, and if we’re able to tap into that history and wisdom, we can find hope and strategies to move forward in this movement. -Haskell
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