DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Amid a heavy police presence and dozens of vocal protesters, Iowa lawmakers were expected to vote Thursday on an unprecedented bill stripping the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, a move opponents say could expose transgender people to discrimination in numerous areas of life.
Both the House and Senate were expected to act on the legislation Thursday, the same day the Georgia House was considering a bill to remove gender protections from the state's hate crimes law, which was passed in 2020 after the death of Ahmaud Arbery.
Iowa's bill, first introduced last week, raced through the legislative process, despite opposition from LGBTQ+ advocates who rallied at the Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.
On Thursday, opponents of the bill filed into the Capitol rotunda before a 90-minute public hearing began, surrounding the line of speakers waiting to testify and shouting “No hate in our state!” Outside the Capitol, a line of people waited to get through building, with many displaying signs and rainbow flags. There was a heavy police presence, with state troopers stationed around the rotunda and hearings rooms.
Of the 167 people who signed up to testify at a public hearing, all but 24 were opposed to the bill.
Unlike Monday, when protesters’ chants reverberated in the subcommittee room and made it difficult to hear speakers in support of the bill, state troopers were blocking off the hallway. That is to create a “natural buffer,” Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan Bayens told The Associated Press, intended to allow the public hearing to proceed while also protecting First Amendment rights to demonstrate, Bayens said.
Iowa’s civil rights law currently protects against discrimination based on race, color, creed, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or disability status.
Sexual orientation and gender identity were not originally included in the state's Civil Rights Act of 1965. They were added by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2007, also with the support of about a dozen Republicans across the two chambers.
The current bill’s supporters, many of whom will also testify before lawmakers, say that was a mistake. They argue that it incorrectly codified the idea that people can transition to another gender and granted transgender women access to spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams that should be protected for people who were assigned female at birth.
The bill would remove gender identity as a protected class and explicitly define female and male, as well as gender, which would be considered a synonym for sex and “shall not be considered a synonym or shorthand expression for gender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.”
If it passes in both the Iowa House and Senate, which currently have GOP majorities, it would go to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds' desk.
V Fixmer-Oraiz, a county supervisor in eastern Johnson County, was the first to testify against the bill. A trans Iowan, they said they have faced their “fair share of discrimination” already and worried that the bill will expose trans Iowans to even more.
“Is it not the role of government to affirm rather than to deny law-abiding citizens their inalienable rights?” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “The people of Iowa deserve better.”
Georgia's changes would come in a bill that would restrict sports participation for transgender students, a law that has passed in 25 states. Georgia's high school athletic association now bans transgender students by policy, but Republican leaders insist the ban needs to be in law and apply to colleges and universities as well.
But the Georgia measure, heavily influenced by a Christian conservative group called Frontline Policy, also replaces all references to “gender” in state law with the word “sex.” The hate crimes law right now protects against crimes motivated by bias against someone's sex or gender, but the new bill would remove gender, which Democrats warn could remove the extra penalties for crimes motivated by bias against transgender people.
House Democratic Caucus Leader Tanya Miller of Atlanta warned in a Monday committee meeting that the bill could “subject an entire class of Georgians to the possibility of having open season on them by removing them from the hate crimes statue.”
Republican Rep. Josh Bonner of Fayetteville, the bill's sponsor, denied that protections would be lessened. “We don't believe it does impact the hate crimes legislation," Bonner said Monday.
But a lawyer for the Georgia General Assembly wrote that the change “would not likely be deemed meaningless by a reviewing court,” while warning there is “no certain indication” of how judges would construe the change.
Iowa Republicans say their changes are intended to reinforce that state's ban on sports participation and public bathroom access for transgender students.
About half of U.S. states include gender identity in their civil rights code to protect against discrimination in housing and public places, such as stores or restaurants, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank. Some additional states do not explicitly protect against such discrimination but it is included in legal interpretations of statutes.
Iowa’s Supreme Court has expressly rejected the argument that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity.
The Iowa bill would be the first legislative action removing explicit nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project.
Several Republican-led legislatures are also pushing to enact more laws this year creating legal definitions of male and female based on the reproductive organs at birth following an executive order from President Donald Trump.
Trump also signed orders laying the groundwork for banning transgender people from military service and keeping transgender girls and women out of girls and women’s sports competitions, among other things. Most of the policies are being challenged in court.
