Iowa lawmakers in the state House and Senate approved a bill Thursday that would strip civil rights protections for transgender Iowans from code. The bill heads to the governor’s desk where she is expected to sign it. 

The bill passed as protestors packed the Iowa Capitol. Nearly 2,500 people visited the capitol on Thursday, according to The Des Moines Register. 

Protestors chanted “No hate in our state” and frequently interrupted the several hours of debate on the bills. 

Despite the protestors’ outcry, Iowa lawmakers approved Senate File 418 in a party line vote in the Senate, 33-15, and a vote with bipartisan opposition in the House, 60-35. Five Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the bill. 

Reps. Michael Bergan, R-Decorah, Austin Harris, R-Moulton, Brian Lohse, R-Bondurant, Norlin Mommsen, R-Dewitt, and David Sieck, R-Glenwood, voted against the proposal. 

The bill would remove gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act and remove anti-discrimination protections in housing, finances, education, public accommodations, and employment afforded in Iowa civil rights code for gender identity. 

LGBTQ+ advocates say that it could make Iowa the first state in the nation to remove a protected class from civil rights code. 

Gender identity, along with sexual orientation, was added as a protected class to the Iowa Civil Rights Act in 2007 when Democrats controlled the governor’s office and the state legislature. 

Iowa Republicans have previously tried to remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights code, and last year a bill that would accomplish it received a hearing. Though, lawmakers on the panel considering the bill unanimously decided to shelf the bill.

The bill approved Thursday would also define sex, gender, male, and female in Iowa code and would require birth certificates to reflect an Iowan’s sex at birth. It would also prohibit Iowa schools from providing instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation to students in grades kindergarten through grade six.

The legislation reflects federal efforts by President Donald Trump to target the transgender community, including executive orders to provide a federal definition of sex as only male or female and for the definition to be reflected on official documents and policies, such as federal prison assignments.  

Trump has also signed orders to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports and cut federal support for gender transitions for people under the age of 19, which are similar to legislation passed by Iowa’s Republican majority in the state legislature over the years. Many of Trump’s executive orders are tied up in court. 

Trump said Iowa republicans should pass the bill “AS FAST AS POSSIBLE” in a post to the social media platform he owns, Truth Social. 

Iowa Republicans have said legal threats to their previous legislative efforts to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports, banning transgender people from using the bathroom aligning with their gender identity in public schools were the impetus for the bill.

Earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed to challenge the state law banning transgender people from using the bathroom aligning with their gender identity at public schools by a transgender Iowa City resident. 

Finnegan Meadows was told by school administrators at Liberty High School, part of the Iowa City Community School District, he could no longer use the men’s restroom when attending his child’s school events, as reported by The Des Moines Register. 

Republicans said lawsuits like Meadows’ and others have proved that the legal standing of the state’s previous measures targeting transgender Iowans are in jeopardy. However, Democrats argue that legal theory dictates whichever law was passed most recently is controlling law. 

Senate lawmakers approve bill on party lines 

The bill was also approved in a party line vote in the Senate just after 3:30 p.m. Thursday. 

Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, said the bill would ensure that laws the legislature passed in the past few years that protected women would remain in place. Schultz said the existence of the words gender identity in Iowa code jeopardize bills aimed at transgender people. 

Schultz pointed to a 2019 Iowa Supreme Court decision, which struck down an Iowa law barring gender affirming care from being paid for by Medicaid because they found it violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act, as a reason to pass the bill. Schultz said the decision has cost the state $2 million to date.

Schultz also said there are 28 states that do not currently have gender identity as a protected class and that Iowa is the only state that has both gender identity as a protected class and laws targeting transgender people. 

“This cannot stand,” Schultz said. “It is the duty of the state government to provide a stable, safe environment for Iowans. It is the duty of the legislature to promote and pass policy to achieve that goal. We are on solid legal ground in Iowa to look at the situation. 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.” 

Senate lawmakers approved the bill in a party line vote and shot down three amendments to the bill. The amendments were brought by Sen. Matt Blake, D-Urbandale, and would have kept protections for gender identity for housing, finances, and employment in Iowa code.

 If the amendments were taken, they would have limited the removal of civil rights protections for gender identity to public accommodations and education, eliminating protections in the sections of the civil rights code that Republicans say jeopardize their previous measures focused on targeting transgender Iowans. 

“We just provided three opportunities to add housing, to add employment, to add access to credit back into statute,” Blake said. “But what we got instead was a clear message of what the intent of this bill is. This is meant to utterly remove, utterly eradicate gender identity from Iowa. This isn’t meant to protect anybody.” 

House lawmakers have bipartisan opposition to bill 

Iowa House lawmakers approved the Senate’s version of the bill with 60 Republicans voting in support of the bill. However, there was bipartisan opposition in the House with five Republicans joining all Democrats in opposing the bill. 

Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, said the bill is paramount to protecting women and protecting the laws that Iowa Republicans have passed in recent years that target transgender Iowans. Holt also argued that transgender Iowans will still have many of the same protections as others under the law. 

“In spite of loud proclamations otherwise, transgender Iowans will have the same rights and protections as everyone else as they should,” Holt said. “But the removal of gender identity as a protected class will prevent the infringement on the rights of others, particularly women, who stand to be erased along with decades of gains toward equality by a protected status that is not based on an immutable trait, but rather a changing identity predicated upon feelings.” 

Iowa Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, D-Hiawatha, the first openly transgender member of the Iowa legislature, said the civil rights protections in the bill are important, “because [they] affirm and respect our dignity and our humanity.” 

“This bill revokes protections to our jobs, our homes and our ability to access credit,” Wichtendahl said. “In other words, it deprives us of our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I bring this up because 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.” 

Wichtendahl said the bill is an attack on transgender Iowans and gives the green light for more hate than they already face. 

“As it says in the rotunda, where law ends, tyranny begins,” Wichtendahl said. “It is far past time these anti-trans bills be placed into the dustbin of history.” 

Iowans speak on bill during public hearing 

In a public hearing Thursday morning, hours before lawmakers in both chambers would debate and pass the bill stripping transgender Iowans of their state civil rights protections, dozens of Iowans spoke on the bill. 

During nearly an hour and a half of public comment, Iowans for and against the bill alternated with the occasional interruption from loud chants in the rotunda.

Lawmakers heard from Iowans in support of the bill including Oliver Bardwell with Iowans for Freedom, a right-leaning advocacy group, who said the bill reflects “biological realities.” 

“Truth is not hatred, truth is not bigotry, truth is compassion and the truth is biological — reality matters,” Bardwell said. “The people of Iowa understand this, and it’s time for our laws to reflect it.” 

Bardwell said the bill protects women and their right to privacy in sensitive spaces like bathrooms and domestic violence shelters. 

“Women are silenced for demanding privacy,” Bardwell said. “Laws protecting women and children are undermined by the activists weaponizing the Iowa civil rights code, [the bill],  corrects this mistake.” 

Lawmakers also heard from dozens of Iowans who opposed the bill. Johnson County Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz, the first transgender person of color to hold county office in Iowa, said the bill lawmakers passed does not match the state’s motto: “Our liberties we prize, our rights we maintain.” 

“By striking gender identity from the state Civil Rights Act, you are condoning inequality and discrimination in housing, education and employment,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “Is it not the role of government to affirm rather than to deny law-abiding citizens their inalienable rights?” 

Fixmer-Oraiz said they understand making difficult decisions as an elected lawmaker but could never comprehend having to speak out because state lawmakers are looking to take away civil rights. 

“I have found that when choosing between humanity and cruelty, it’s an easy decision for good people who want to do the right thing,” they said.