Iowa’s civil rights protections no longer include gender identity as new law takes effect
Monks, Iowa – Iowa has become the first state to withdraw the gender identity from its civil rights code under a law that took effect on Tuesday, which means that transgender and non -binary residents are no longer protected against discrimination in their work, their accommodation and other aspects of life.
The law also explicitly defines women and men on the basis of reproductive bodies at birth and removes people’s ability to change sexual designation on their birth certificate.
An unprecedented return of legal rights after almost two decades in the Iowa code leaves transgender, non -binary and potentially even more vulnerable than before. It is a governing doctrine now largely adopted by President Donald Trump and the States led by Republicans despite the general public vision that sex and sex are better understood as a spectrum than as a definition or a definition.
When Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed the new Iowa law, she said that the previous civilian rights code “blurred the biological line between the sexes”.
“This is the common sense to recognize the obvious biological differences between men and women. In fact, it is necessary to obtain real equal protection for women and girls,” she said in a video press release.
The provisions of the state health and social services budget also say that Medicaid beneficiaries are no longer covered for surgery affirmed by gender or hormone therapy.
A national movement
The Capitol of the State of Iowa has filled out of demonstrators while the law passed through the legislature under republican control and at the Reynolds office in a week in February. The republicans of Iowa have declared that the laws had been adopted in recent years to restrict the use by transgender students of the bathrooms and the changing rooms, and their participation in the sports teams, could not coexist with a code of civil rights which includes protections of gender identity.
About two dozen other states and the Trump administration have advanced restrictions on transgender persons. Republicans say that these executive laws and actions protect spaces for women, rejecting the idea that people can move on to another sex. Many are facing judicial disputes.
About two-thirds of American adults believe that if a person is a man or a woman is determined by biological characteristics at birth, an Associated Press-Noc research survey for public affairs conducted in May. But there is less consensus on the policies that target transgender and non -binary people.
Transgender people say that this kind of policies denies their existence and capitalizes on prejudices for political ends.
In a major setback for transgender rights at the national level, the United States Supreme Court has confirmed the ban on Tennessee on puberty blockers and hormonal treatments for transgender minors. The conservative majority of the Court said that it did not violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution, which forces the government to deal with people in the same way.
Not all states include gender identity in their civil rights code, but Iowa was the first to remove non-discrimination protections based on gender identity, according to the Movement Advance Project, a reflection group on LGBTQ rights.
Iowa discrimination incidents, before and after July 1
Iowans will still have time to file a complaint with the State Office of Civil Rights of the State on discrimination based on gender identity occurred before the law is in force.
State law requires that a complaint be subject within 300 days of the last incident of alleged discrimination. This means that people have until April 27 to file a complaint regarding discrimination based on gender identity, according to Kristen Stiffler, executive director of the office.
According to Stiffler. Forty-three were deposited and accepted from July 1, 2024 to June 19 of this year.
The representative of the state of the Iowa loves Wichtendahl, a democrat and the first openly transgender legislator of the State, fears that the law leads to an increase in discrimination for transgender Iowans.
“Each time someone must check your identity document and he notes that the gender marker does not correspond to appearance, then this opens hostility, discrimination as possibilities,” said WichTendahl, named examples such as applying for a job, passing through the airport, buying beer or stopping in a traffic stop. “It stretches you instantly. It instantly puts you on the spot.”
According to the Advancement movement, around half of the US states include gender identity in their civil rights code to protect themselves against discrimination in housing and public places, such as stores or restaurants. Some additional states do not explicitly protect against such discrimination, but it is included in the legal interpretations of laws.
Five years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ persons are protected by a historic law of federal civil rights which prohibits sex discrimination at work. But the Supreme Court of Iowa expressly rejected the argument that sex -based discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity.
Change Iowa birth certificates before the law is in force
The months between the moment when the bill was promulgated and the moment it took effect gave the transgender Iowans time to continue the birth certificates modified before the elimination of this option.
Keenan Crow, with the LGBTQ One Iowa advocacy group, said the group has long distributed legal clinics to help this process.
“The last one we had was by far the biggest,” said Crow.
The IOWA Ministry of Transport always has a process by which people can modify gender designation on their license or identification card, but have proposed administrative rules to eliminate this option.
Wichtendahl also said that she had spoken to certain families who were trying to leave the state following the new law.
“It’s heartbreaking because it is the life of people we are talking about,” added Wichtendahl. “These are families who have dear trans and it is to keep their loved ones away, it puts their loved ones in the uncertain future, by putting their health and their safety in danger.”
