An aerial view of the snow-covered Iowa State Capitol building ahead of the Iowa caucus vote in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, January 15, 2024. Photo by Marco Bello/REUTERS
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have stripped gender identity from the state’s civil rights law, with opponents arguing the proposal could expose LGBTQ+ Iowans to discrimination in education, housing and public spaces.
The bill, which has been proposed without success in recent years, was voted down by a three-member subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as the first step in Iowa’s legislative process. As they debated the bill, LGBTQ+ activists outside the room chanted, “Transgender rights are human rights.” Two of the subcommittee members are Republicans and one is a Democrat.
While not all states have explicit protections based on gender identity, opponents of the bill argued that removing such existing protections from state anti-discrimination laws would stand out at a historic moment when Republican-led state legislatures have already enacted anti-transgender laws.
Republican House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, who is not a member of the subcommittee and did not participate in the vote, said Wednesday that he did not think breaking established civil rights law was a “wise choice” “whether you agree with everything or not.”
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“Taking away that protection would be an opportunity to discriminate against one of the protected populations,” he said of how the bill would be perceived.
LGBTQ+ Iowans and their allies who stormed the Iowa State Capitol to protest the bill far outnumbered those who supported it, but testimony initially alternated between support and opposition. Some transgender Iowans in the room shared personal accounts of the discrimination they’ve faced and their fears of further marginalization.
Iowa’s civil rights laws protect against discrimination in employment, wages, public accommodations, housing, education and credit based on certain characteristics of an individual, including gender identity, as well as race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or disability status.
Sexual orientation and gender identity were not originally included in Iowa’s civil rights law, enacted in 1965. They were added by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2007, with the support of about a dozen Republicans from both houses.
State Assemblyman Jeff Shipley, author of the bill debated Wednesday, argued passionately that there are no objective standards for assessing gender identity and that a “deeply hostile” culture exists that seeks to protect some individuals over others. Shipley said the latter was evident when protesters yelled abuse and gave lawmakers the finger as they left the room.
As written, the bill would amend the Civil Rights Act’s definition of a protected disability to include the psychological distress experienced by transgender people known as gender dysphoria, as well as other diagnoses related to gender identity disorder.
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While those individuals would be protected, advocates clarified Wednesday that being transgender is not a disability and would put at risk a broader segment of transgender Iowans who do not experience gender dysphoria.
“I’m not disabled,” said Annie Sarcone, a transgender Iowa native and director of the Des Moines Queer Youth Resource Center. “It’s shameful that the Iowa Legislature is trying to do something like this. We’re the only state that has gone this far.”
The Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature, signed by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, has passed several bills targeting LGBTQ+ Iowans in recent years, including banning transgender students from using public restrooms that match their gender identity, banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, and barring transgender women from participating in girls’ high school and college sports.
The measures are part of a wave of laws recently passed in conservative states across the country that the Human Rights Campaign has called a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans.
About half of U.S. states have included gender identity in their civil rights laws to protect against discrimination in housing and public places like stores and restaurants, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank. Some other states don’t explicitly protect against such discrimination but include it in their legal interpretations of the statutes.
Federal protections against employment discrimination based on gender identity were strengthened in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2020. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion that discrimination because of LGBTQ+ status is an extension of discrimination based on sex.
In a 2022 ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court took a clearly different view from the federal appeals court’s ruling.
Left: An aerial view of the Iowa State Capitol building covered in snow ahead of the Iowa caucus vote, January 15, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Photo by Marco Bello/REUTERS