Gender Identity Is No Longer A Protected Class In Iowa

Though LGBTQ+ Iowans have been protected under the state’s civil rights act for nearly 20 years, those protections may soon cease to exist. On Friday, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed HF 583, a bill that will remove gender identity as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights bill, which prohibits discrimination in housing, education, the workforce, and financial institutions. In short, discriminating against trans Iowans based on their gender identity will no longer be a violation of state law. 

Trans Iowans have been a protected class in Iowa since 2007, when the state legislature passed a bill adding both gender identity and sexual orientation to the state’s Civil Rights Act. This makes Iowa the first state in the country to strip its own citizens of existing nondiscrimination protections. 

But that wasn’t the only change Reynolds and the Republican-led state legislature made to Iowa’s trans-focused policies. The new law will also make it more difficult for Iowans to change their gender markers on legal documents, removing a clause that had previously allowed for changes on state-issued birth certificates in select cases. Now, Iowans who apply to change their gender marker will instead receive an updated birth certificate indicating their sex assigned at birth, with a separate box to indicate they have transitioned. The bill also outlines new restrictions for the parents of intersex children, giving them six months to “determine the child’s sex” with a healthcare provider before they must designate either “male” or “female” on their child’s birth certificate. 

The wide-reaching bill also took aim at Iowa’s public schools, banning the teaching of “gender theory”—which it defines as teaching about trans identities in any capacity—from kindergarten through sixth grade. While debating the bill on the Senate floor, Republican state lawmakers like State Senator Jason Schultz expressed concern that keeping gender identity as a protected class might conflict with the state’s recent ban on trans women in government-funded school athletic programs.

Related: Senate Democrats Shut Down Anti-Trans Attack Disguised As Sports Bill

Though Iowa’s move to actively roll back existing civil rights is a historical first, HF 583 is heavily aligned with the Trump Administration’s ongoing attempts to erase trans identity at the federal level. Shortly after taking office, the president signed an executive order defining sex as an “immutable biological classification” for which there were only two options, male and female. More recently, the president signed another executive order banning trans women from competing on women’s sports teams that receive federal funding, and a third order aiming to ban transgender troops from military service.

In a video posted to X shortly after signing the bill, Governor Reynolds said that defining sex under these narrow, binary parameters—and removing avenues for Iowans to change their gender markers—was “necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls.”

Naturally, the bill received extensive pushback from lawmakers and civilians alike, drawing a crowd of nearly 2,500 people outside of Iowa’s state capitol to protest the new law. Meanwhile, inside the building, Democratic State Representative Aime Wichtendahl, the first trans woman elected to hold public office in Iowa, spoke at a House debate on the bill, arguing that removing gender identity from civil rights protections “denies [trans people] our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

The state law, which ends 18 years of civil rights protections, is set to take effect on July 1.