This story was updated Feb. 28, 2025, at 4:00 p.m.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law Friday that removes gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
The law takes effect July 1 and will end state anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodations and more.
Reynolds said in a video statement that the new law is needed to prevent courts from overturning Iowa’s other laws that restrict transgender rights in school bathrooms and sports teams.
“These commonsense protections were at risk because before I signed this bill, the civil rights code blurred the biological line between the sexes,” she said. “It has also forced Iowa taxpayers to pay for gender reassignment surgeries. And that’s unacceptable to me, and it’s unacceptable to most Iowans.”
Reynolds said the law is necessary to “strengthen protections for women and girls.”
Max Mowitz, executive director of LGBTQ rights organization One Iowa, said this makes Iowa the first state to roll back civil rights protections for an entire protected class.
“Gov. Reynolds has chosen to put Iowa on the wrong side of history,” Mowitz said. “By signing this bill into law, she has made it legal to discriminate against transgender Iowans in nearly every aspect of life — where they live, where they work and where they go to school. This law sends a devastating message: that transgender Iowans are not worthy of the same rights, dignity and protections as their neighbors.”
Original story published Feb. 27, 2025, at 6:12 p.m.
Iowa Republican lawmakers passed a bill Thursday afternoon to remove state civil rights protections for transgender Iowans, sending it to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk for her signature after hundreds of people protested at the Iowa Capitol.
Some protesters shouted angrily at lawmakers after the votes in the House and Senate. Earlier in the day, protesters filled the Statehouse and chanted the Iowa state motto, “Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.”
The bill would remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which provides protection from discrimination in housing, education, employment, wages, public accommodations and credit practices.
Republicans fast-tracked the bill this week after introducing it last Thursday, saying it’s needed to ensure other state laws targeting transgender Iowans are not struck down by the courts.
LGBTQ rights advocates and Democrats urged Republican lawmakers to reject the bill, saying it will lead to transgender people being denied jobs, housing, credit cards, government services and more, just because they are transgender.
“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.”
Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, Iowa’s first openly transgender state representative
Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, D-Hiawatha, is the first openly transgender person elected to the Iowa Legislature. She said she was kicked out of her rental home after she transitioned. She said anti-discrimination protections affirm transgender people’s dignity and humanity.
“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,” she said. “The sum total of every anti-trans bill and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal, to force us back into the closet. If we want jobs or a place to live, we have to go back, is what they are telling us.”
Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, said the bill is needed to protect women’s rights by ensuring transgender women are not in women’s bathrooms, changing facilities and athletics. He also said it will allow lawmakers to ban Medicaid from covering gender-affirming procedures.
“The removal of gender identity as a protected class means that transgender rights are not elevated above women and other citizens,” Holt said. “The hyperbolic argument that taking this step will cause discrimination does not hold up to scrutiny or common sense.”
“The removal of gender identity as a protected class means that transgender rights are not elevated above women and other citizens.”
In recent years, Republican lawmakers have prohibited transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity, barred transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, and banned gender-affirming medications and procedures for transgender youth.
Supporters of the bill said they fear having gender identity in the Iowa Civil Rights Act puts those laws at risk.
Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, said Iowa is the only state to have this “conflict” in state law.
“Having seen the damage and disruption across the country, it is in Iowa’s best interest, and we have a strong rational basis to choose to protect women, children and taxpayers,” he said.
Schultz said the majority of states don’t have gender identity in their civil rights laws, which he said shows that the bill will not lead to rampant discrimination.
Sen. Liz Bennett, D-Cedar Rapids, said this will make Iowa the first state to strip citizens of civil rights.
“The fact that this bill is so expansive to remove an entire group of people from civil rights protections speaks to the real agenda, which is policing gender expression and creating a world so hostile to those that don’t fit your mold that trans or non-gender-conforming people can’t exist,” she said.
The bill would also bar transgender women from places like women’s public bathrooms, prisons and domestic violence shelters while stating, “Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.” The bill would define “sex” in state law as “the state of being either male or female as observed or clinically verified at birth.” It would also prevent transgender Iowans from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates.
The bill passed on a 33-15 party-line vote in the Senate. In the House, five Republicans joined all Democrats in voting against the bill 60-36.
Holt and Schultz were the only Republicans to speak during debate. Nearly all of the Democratic lawmakers spoke against the bill.
Iowa is poised to be first state to repeal transgender people’s civil rights protections
Gender identity was added to the Iowa Civil Rights Act as a protected characteristic in 2007. The law prohibits discrimination based on Iowans’ race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, ancestry or disability. Those who believe they were discriminated against in violation of the law can file a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer said if Reynolds signs the bill, Iowa will be the first state in the country to repeal protections for transgender people from its civil rights law. He said Iowa has historically been a “trailblazer” for civil rights, from banning slavery to legalizing same-sex marriage.
“It is shocking to think that Iowa may now become another first — the first to specifically single out transgender people for removal of their legal rights as enshrined in state anti-discrimination law,” Stringer said. “That is unacceptable.”
Twenty-three states prohibit housing and employment discrimination based on gender identity, and 22 states prohibit discrimination in public accommodations, according to Human Rights Campaign. Additional states have adopted a federal legal framework that says gender identity discrimination is prohibited under sex-based employment protections.
Hundreds of Iowans gathered at the Iowa Capitol to protest a bill that removes anti-discrimination protections for transgender Iowans from state law.
Members of the public have their say before lawmakers vote
Before debate on the bill, the House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on the proposal Thursday morning. Forty-two people spoke for and against removing protections based on gender identity.
Kayde Martin of Anamosa asked lawmakers to leave gender identity in Iowa civil rights code to safeguard transgender youth.
“I want to be able to be the person I was meant to be and the person God knows me to be,” said Martin, who just turned 18 and plans to attend the University of Northern Iowa. “Please don’t take my rights away simply because you disagree about who I am. Being trans is not a choice. It is a reality that you come to when you come to love yourself and understand yourself.”
Keenan Crow of the LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa contrasted the debate over transgender rights to Iowa’s civil rights history. Iowa was the first state to outlaw racial segregation in schools. The state Supreme Court ruling came before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for “separate but equal” accommodations based on race in Plessy v. Ferguson.
“State after state had to choose. Iowa was the first — the first — to say separate is not equal,” Crow said. “And yet here we stand enshrining those very words into Iowa code: separate but equal. That is shameful.”
Like other supporters who spoke at the hearing, Kathryn Kueter of Pleasant Hill considers transgender rights to be in conflict with women’s rights. She said the proposal will protect the privacy of women and girls by keeping them from encountering transgender women in places like bathrooms or changing rooms.
“If anyone is being erased, it’s me: a woman, a mother,” Kueter said. “A man, no matter how much makeup he wears, or how many hormones he takes or how he will mutilate his body, will ever be a woman. Nor will he ever understand what it means to be a woman or a mother.”
Ryan Benn, a lobbyist for the conservative Christian organization the FAMiLY Leader, said Iowa was wrong to add protections for gender identity in 2007.
“Let’s make Iowa first state to correct course,” Benn said. “It’s time to come back to our senses and it is right and good for our laws to recognize the real differences between men and women.”
