Sean McRoberts of Iowa City first came to terms with their gender identity almost six years ago while in their upper 30s and has felt freer and more like themselves since. 

McRoberts, a transgender nonbinary person, said growing up, they did not have the language available to understand what they felt. 

“It has really been empowering and freeing to come to that self-understanding,” McRoberts said. “I’m really grateful, especially for the people who have walked with me in that, and the people who have helped to give me the language.” 

They said younger people in their community gave them the language for how they had intrinsically felt for most of their life. 

“I’ve been so grateful for people younger than me for finding the language and moving that into the public conversation, so folks like me and people older than me can find ourselves through gender conversation,” McRoberts said. 

Iowans like McRoberts, whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth, are now vulnerable to discrimination after Iowa Republicans removed state civil rights protections for gender identity from the Iowa Code as of July 1.

Without state-level protections, transgender Iowans are left without a remedy for discrimination under state law. However, experts say transgender Iowans can turn to federal civil rights laws and local ordinances in their stead. 

Iowa became a leader in LGBTQ+ civil rights in 2007 when, under the control of Democrats, the state was one of the first to enshrine sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in Iowa’s civil rights law. 

Now, Iowa has become a leader in a different regard after Iowa Republicans pushed through Senate File 418, a bill removing gender identity as a protected class, changes the definition of man and woman in the Iowa Code, and requires birth certificates to show sex assigned at birth. The bill careened through two subcommittees, two committees, a public hearing, two floor votes, and to the governor’s desk in less than one week in February. 

With historic majorities in both chambers, Iowa Republicans were a mostly unified front on the bill, with only six House Republicans defecting to vote with all Democrats against the bill. Iowa Republicans argued the bill was necessary to protect a plethora of anti-trans laws Republicans have enacted since 2021. 

Those laws were being legally threatened by the existence of civil rights protections for gender identity in the Iowa Code. In an effort to prevent them from being overturned by Iowa courts, Republicans sought to remove the protections this session. 

“Every Iowan deserves to have their human rights protected and to be treated with dignity and respect,” Iowa Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, said on Feb. 27. Holt was the floor manager and original sponsor for the bill. 

“That may have been the intent in 2007, but that was clearly not the result. Current Iowa Code with gender identity as a protected class does not accomplish this, and it stands in the way of Iowans trying to implement common sense policies and exercise their rights,” Holt said.

Holt did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Daily Iowan for this story. 

The move by Iowa Republicans also comes after a general election fraught with anti-transgender messaging nationally, and where Republicans won by wide margins in most of the state. It also comes while President Donald Trump has targeted transgender people nationally through executive orders, banning them from the military, declaring there are only two sexes, and requiring transgender Americans to denote their sex assigned at birth. 

McRoberts was one of thousands who lamented the Iowa bill during protests outside legislative hearing rooms and during public hearings where LGBTQ+ Iowans and allies showed up in force to oppose the bill. 

They said watching the bill be introduced and eventually passed into law was a gut punch. 

“The realization that our state was singling out trans people for the removal of civil rights protections like that,” McRoberts said. “We had been in the Iowa Civil Rights Code for decades, and now this is going to be taken away, that we would be the first state in the nation to take away civil rights from a protected class.” 

Now, transgender Iowans lack state protections against discrimination in employment, public accommodations, wages, housing, credit, and education. 

Iowa reverses storied civil rights history

In 2007, when the protections were enshrined in state law, it was a bipartisan vote, according to archives of the Des Moines Register. Nine House Republicans joined all but three House Democrats in voting for the bill.

The protections existed for 18 years and were used a number of times by Iowans seeking to remedy discrimination since their inception. 

According to data obtained by the DI, 610 Iowans have sought a remedy from the Iowa Civil Rights Commission for discrimination based on gender identity since the law was created in 2007. A complaint to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission is the first step in the complaint process before litigation can be brought, according to the Iowa Civil Rights Act.  

The number of complaints filed citing gender identity as a protected class upon submission to the Iowa Civil Rights Council, has risen steadily over the years, peaking in fiscal 2016 with 56 complaints filed.

Iowans can no longer submit complaints for discrimination occurring after July 1, 2025. Those who have experienced discrimination before July 1 have until April 27, 2026 to file a complaint as long as it is within 300 days of the alleged discriminatory incident, Kaitlin Smith, a spokesperson for the Iowa Office of Civil Rights, said. 

Protections used to expand transgender rights

Since enacted, Iowa’s protections for gender identity have protected transgender Iowans from discrimination and have been used as a framework for many victories for transgender rights in court over the years.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa has led in challenging several anti-transgender state laws using the state’s civil rights protections for gender identity. These include Iowa’s first lawsuit using gender identity as a protected class, and a series of lawsuits challenging restrictions on Medicaid covering costs of gender-affirming care. 

Following these lawsuits, Iowa Republicans have passed several laws aimed at restricting access for transgender Iowans. This includes passing a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, prohibiting transgender Iowans from using a restroom aligning with their gender while on public school property, and prohibiting transgender students from competing on the sports team that aligns with their gender. Iowa lawmakers also passed a ban on using state Medicaid to fund gender-affirming care at the end of the 2025 legislative session. 

In October 2024, the ACLU of Iowa filed a lawsuit on behalf of Iowa City parent Finnegan Meadows, who was denied access to a bathroom that aligned with his gender identity during a school event at Liberty High School. 

This came after Iowa lawmakers passed a law requiring persons to use the bathroom aligning with their sex assigned at birth in Iowa public schools in 2023. 

The lawsuit said the Iowa City Community School District violated Meadows’ civil rights by denying access, violating the state’s civil rights laws, and the state constitution. 

Iowa Republicans argued the existence of Iowa’s civil rights protections for gender identity would jeopardize state efforts to ban transgender Iowans from using bathrooms aligning with their gender identity, efforts to prohibit state funds from paying for gender-affirming care, and ban transgender girls from girls’ sports.

“All of these common sense policies are at risk so long as gender identity remains in the Iowa Civil Rights Code — identity is based on feelings, not biology,” Holt said during remarks on the Iowa House floor on Feb. 27.

However, advocates say the bill sends a message to transgender Iowans: They are not welcome. 

“It’s been devastating”

Following the final legislative vote on the repeal of the protections for transgender Iowans, Iowa Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, D-Hiawatha, said she has seen folks in her community feel ostracized.

“It makes us feel less safe, less valued, as Iowans, and that this government isn’t going to stop doing these anti-trans bills anytime soon,” Wichtendahl said, Iowa’s first openly transgender lawmaker. “So I think there’s a real pessimism and there’s a recognition that Iowa is no longer safe.” 

V Fixmer-Oraiz, a Johnson County supervisor and the only openly transgender person of color elected to office in Iowa, said recent legislative action has sought to vilify persons like them throughout the state. It has taken a toll on their mental health. 

“It’s been devastating,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “It is really trying to vilify and dehumanize people. And whenever you see that, I think it’s usually out of fear, out of not understanding something or someone. And I think it’s unfortunate.” 

Fixmer-Oraiz said they have been working on supporting those in Johnson County who are threatened by state legislation and working to support those in the community. 

“It is incumbent upon me and my colleagues to make sure that we are doing everything we can, to provide any protections we can, and also to look at different ways to support people,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. 

While advocates work to support their communities, experts say despite the removal of gender identity as a protected status, other legal protections remain for transgender Iowans. 

Few protections remain for transgender Iowans

Without clear protections in state law for transgender Iowans’ civil rights, legal experts say they will have to seek protections in other parts of the law. 

Nathan Maxwell, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, a legal organization that works on LGBTQ+ issues, said transgender Iowans can still find protections on the federal level in some cases. 

These include Title VII, which protects transgender Iowans from employment discrimination, Title IX, which protects transgender Iowans from certain discrimination in education, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects transgender Iowans from discrimination based on gender dysphoria. 

However, the legal landscape on the state level remains untested, Maxwell said. With protections based on sex cemented in Iowa law, attorneys could argue gender identity might be akin to a sex stereotype and would equate to discrimination based on sex. 

But it remains unclear how Iowa courts would interpret such an argument. 

“The removing of transgender, gender identity as a category of protection from the Iowa civil rights laws is largely unprecedented,” Maxwell said. “There is some amount of mystery that will ensue.” 

There are also many municipalities — Iowa City, Ames, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Davenport, and Johnson County —that have enacted their own civil rights ordinances, which include provisions on gender identity. 

Maxwell said these local ordinances can also give protections to transgender Iowans unless they are preempted by state law. 

Maxwell said this kind of law is mostly about sending a message to transgender Iowans. 

“It’s the first kind of step towards eventual complete erasure, which is what they’re really going for here, and it makes trans people sort of fundamentally unsafe in society,” Maxwell said. “It transmits the message again that it’s OK to discriminate against trans folks.” 

Even though protections might have been erased from chapters of the Iowa Code, it does not make discrimination legal, Maxwell said. 

“It doesn’t force any discrimination,” Maxwell said. “Someone’s going to try to use the removal of those protections as a reason that they’re allowed to violate the law, which I don’t think is the case.” 

While transgender Iowans are no longer able to rely on state law for protections, Wichtendahl plans to continue to fight for a better Iowa for them. 

“I’m a stubborn enough person to keep fighting, because I know, at the end of the day, not all of us have the privilege or ability or means to go ahead and just simply pack up and move,” Wichtendahl said. “So for those who are still in Iowa, I’m still here, and I’m still going to be fighting for our rights and to stop whatever they’re going to keep doing.”