Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law that will strip civil rights protections from transgender Iowans on Friday, making Iowa the first state in the nation to remove a protected class from its civil rights code.
Her signature comes less than 24 hours after the bill was passed by the Iowa House and Senate and a little over a week after the bill was introduced. It also ends nearly 20 years of civil rights protections for transgender Iowans after a Democratic trifecta enacted those protections in 2007.
The law, Senate File 418, removes gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act which would open transgender Iowans up to discrimination in housing, finances, employment, education, and public accommodations.
Reynolds said the bill is about safeguarding the rights of women and the “biological differences between men and women.”
“In fact, it is necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls,” Reynolds said of the bill in a video statement posted on Facebook Friday. “It is about the biological differences, and that is all.”
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Republicans in the statehouse argued the bill was necessary to protect laws they’ve enacted in previous legislative sessions that targeted transgender people. They include a 2023 law banning transgender people from using the bathroom aligning with their gender in public schools and a 2022 law that banned transgender people’s participation in school athletics.
A lawsuit was filed earlier this month by an Iowa City man challenging the law banning transgender people from using the correct bathrooms at public schools after he was denied access to the men’s bathroom at his child’s sporting event, as reported by The Des Moines Register.
“Unfortunately, these common sense protections were at risk because, before I signed this bill, the Civil Rights Code blurred the biological line between the sexes,” Reynolds said in a video message on Facebook. “I know this is a sensitive issue for some, many of whom have heard misinformation about what this bill does. The truth is that it simply brings Iowa in line with the federal Civil Rights Code, as well as most states.”
The law will 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.
Reynolds said that despite the change to the civil rights code that all Iowans are “children of God, and no law changes that.”
“We all agree that every Iowan, without exception, deserves respect and dignity,” Reynolds said. “What this bill does accomplish is to strengthen protections for women and girls, and I believe that is the right thing to do.”
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.
With Reynolds’ signature the bill will become law and make Iowa the first in the nation to remove a protected class from their state civil rights code, LGBTQ+ advocates say.
“This isn’t leadership. It’s a shameful display of power used to crush the most vulnerable Iowans,” said Becky Tayler, the executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, an advocacy group focused on LGBTQ+ youth and education, said in a news release Friday. “Governor Reynolds has made it clear — her version of ‘freedom to flourish’ is only for those who fit her narrow, outdated vision. If there is one message to send to Governor Reynolds, it is this: transgender Iowans have always existed and will always exist.
The bill comes as President Donald Trump pursues executive orders that would ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports and cut federal support for gender transitions for people under the age of 19, among other proposals targeting transgender people.
Trump endorsed the legislation Thursday, asking Republicans to pass the bill “as fast as possible” in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
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.