Republican members of the Iowa House and Senate have introduced dozens of bills targeting LGBTQ people since the GOP gained full control of state government in 2017. But the latest bill to drop broke new ground in several ways.

House Judiciary Committee chair Steven Holt introduced House Study Bill 242, “an Act relating to sex and gender,” on February 20. He intends to put it on a fast track to Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk. A subcommittee meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 24, at 11:00 a.m. Republican State Representative Brian Lohse posted on Facebook that the plan is for the full Judiciary Committee to consider the bill on Monday afternoon, and for leaders to bring it up for a House floor vote on February 27.

On its face, the bill would ensure that transgender and nonbinary Iowans have no legal protection against discrimination and no official recognition of their gender identity.

In addition, the bill’s impact could extend beyond the LGBTQ community to threaten civil rights protections for other groups.

A SWEEPING ATTACK ON TRANSGENDER RIGHTS

Max Mowitz, the executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa, said in a February 20 statement, “This is the worst bill we have ever seen come out of the Iowa Legislature, and that is a high bar.”

It’s a fair assessment. This discrimination omnibus combines elements from past bills and throws in some new ideas to create a comprehensive anti-trans package.

Erasing civil rights protections for transgender people

Iowa lawmakers added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Iowa Civil Rights Act in 2007, the first year of a Democratic trifecta. House Study Bill 242 would remove gender identity as a protected class under that statute (Iowa Code Chapter 216). The bill strikes gender identity from all of the law’s sub-sections, which prohibit discrimination in the areas of employment, wages, public accommodations, housing, education, and credit practices.

As many others have observed, Iowa would be the first state in the country to remove a protected class from its civil rights code if this bill becomes law.

Exclusionary definitions in Iowa Code

Much of the language in House Study Bill 242 is borrowed from a bill Governor Reynolds introduced last year (initially House Study Bill 649, renumbered House File 2389). Republicans advanced that bill from the Education Committee in early February 2024, but House leaders never put it to a vote of the full chamber.

For purposes of interpreting Iowa statutes, this bill defines “sex” as a person’s sex assigned at birth. “Woman,” “girl,” “man,” “boy,” “mother,” and “father” are all defined in ways that exclude transgender or nonbinary people. Holt told conservative podcaster Oliver Bardwell on February 22, “We worked with a lot of legal groups that are experts in this area. We defined man and woman in a way that I think is ironclad.”

Like last year’s bill, House Study Bill 242 would require state government agencies, local government entities, and school districts to “identify the sex of each person” as “either male or female” when collecting “vital statistics for the purpose of complying with state antidiscrimination laws, or for the purpose of gathering accurate state public health, crime, economic, or other data.”

Transgender or nonbinary people would not exist in such data sets. Pete McRoberts, policy director for the ACLU of Iowa, told me last year that restricting data collection in that way would make it impossible “for a city or any state agency to accurately report violence against transgender people to the state of Iowa.”

A framework to justify segregation

Holt’s proposal revives several troubling sentences from the governor’s 2024 bill:

• “The term ‘equal‘ does not mean ‘same‘ or ‘identical.’”
• “Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.”
• “Any state law, policy, or program that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex shall be construed to forbid unfair treatment of females or males in relation to similarly situated members of the opposite sex.”

What does that language mean in practice? For one thing, it suggests trans women aren’t entitled to be treated like other women. They can demonstrate discrimination only if they are treated differently from men.

Although these passages appear to be directed at transgender people, they could also undermine other kinds of discrimination claims, as I’ll discuss below.

A statewide bathroom bill

Another passage lifted from Reynolds’ 2024 bill would lay the groundwork for a statewide ban on transgender people using facilities consistent with their gender identity.

Notwithstanding any provision of state law to the contrary, distinctions based on sex, including but not limited to in prisons or other detention facilities, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, restrooms, and in other contexts where health, safety, or privacy are implicated resulting in separate accommodations, are substantially related to the important government objectives of protecting the health, safety, and privacy of the persons in these contexts.

The phrase “substantially related to the important government objectives” is an attempt to head off a lawsuit. Courts typically use a legal standard known as “intermediate scrutiny” when considering whether sex-based distinctions in law are constitutional. To meet that burden, the government needs to show the restrictions are substantially related to an important state objective.

No way to reflect gender identity on birth certificates

The governor’s bill from last year would have created new barriers for trans people seeking to replace their birth certificates, and would have required re-issued birth certificates to indicate each person’s sex assigned at birth as well as the new “designation.”

House Study Bill 242 goes further. It would eliminate code language that currently allows birth certificates to reflect a “sex change” if physicians and surgeons file an affidavit stating that “the sex designation of the person has changed.” Under the bill, any new birth certificate issued “shall include a designation of sex of the person at birth.” In a February 22 telephone interview, Democratic State Representative Aime Wichtendahl (Iowa’s first transgender legislator) characterized that provision as “a pink triangle bill.”

ACLU of Iowa executive director Mark Stringer pointed out in a statement that updated birth certificates are often needed to obtain other documents that reflect a person’s gender identity, such as a driver’s license.

Speaking to Bardwell, Holt acknowledged the intent to eliminate any legal recognition of gender identity. He explained that when drafting the bill, they made sure birth certificates “could not be used—even if someone changes their gender, their biology at birth still has to be on that birth certificate.”

An astute Bleeding Heartland reader pointed out that the “explanation” of the bill (see pages 15-16), produced by Legislative Services Agency staff, does not accurately describe the section related to birth certificates (pages 3-4). It appears that passages from the explanation of last year’s bill were copied and pasted into this one, even though the bill text on birth certificates is quite different.

A fix for “don’t say trans” teaching restrictions

Near the end of the bill, Holt’s proposal would alter a code section that is currently being litigated in federal court. A wide-ranging education law passed in 2023 (Senate File 496) is best known for imposing a school book ban. The law also includes a section commonly known as “don’t say gay or trans,” which stipulates that a “school district shall not provide any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through grade six.”

The ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal are representing the advocacy group Iowa Safe Schools and some LGBTQ students, who are challenging that provision on First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa recently heard arguments on their request to block the state from enforcing the gender identity and sexual orientation language. The provision raises many questions. If a school offers separate boys and girls sports teams, is that a “program” relating to gender identity? If a teacher explains that boys and girls need to use sex-segregated restrooms, or mentions a transgender person in class, is that “instruction” relating to gender identity?

House Study Bill 242 would replace “gender identity” in that part of the code with “gender theory.” It defines that phrase as follows:

“Gender theory” means the concept that an individual may properly be described in terms of an internal sense of gender that is incongruent with the individual’s sex as either male or female. “Gender theory” includes the concept that an individual who experiences distress or discomfort with the individual’s sex should identify as and live consistent with the individual’s internal sense of gender, and that an individual can delay natural puberty and develop sex characteristics of the opposite sex through the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures.

In other words, Iowa students in grades K-6 could not be taught or even exposed to the idea that transgender people exist.

Iowa Safe Schools executive director Becky Tayler said in a February 20 statement that the new bill “subverts the constitutional guarantees of equality under the law and seeks to push trans Iowans back into the shadows.” She added, “This bill sends a message that trans Iowans aren’t welcome in their own state.”

No lies detected.

Another message is coming through loud and clear: those who run the show at the statehouse are more committed to this goal than ever.

FULL-THROATED SUPPORT FROM LEADERSHIP

For the first five years of Iowa’s GOP trifecta, bills targeting LGBTQ people never made it past the subcommittee stage in the state House or Senate. A small group of backbenchers introduced almost all of those measures: from eliminating civil rights protections for trans Iowans to restricting bathroom use, gender-affirming care, or school curriculum.

As House Judiciary Committee chair, Holt himself blocked several of those proposals. When nine House Republicans introduced a bill in January 2020 to remove gender identity from the civil rights code, Holt told me and other reporters right away, “The bill is dead. I will not assign it to sub-committee.”

The momentum shifted in 2022, when Reynolds used her political capital to pressure lawmakers to approve a transgender sports ban. (She couldn’t contain her glee at the bill signing.) The discrimination accelerated in 2023, when Republicans fast-tracked a school bathroom bill and a gender-affirming care ban—proposals that had previously died without subcommittee hearings.

Holt signaled in 2024 that he favored changing the civil rights code, and allowed a subcommittee to consider last year’s bill removing gender identity as a protected class. But that bill came from State Representative Jeff Shipley, not one of the House GOP power players. The subcommittee rejected his proposal by a unanimous vote.

In contrast, Holt introduced House Study Bill 242 this week as a Judiciary Committee bill—a sign he’s determined to pass it. While he didn’t respond to my email inquiries about his change of heart, Holt provided comments to other news organizations and spoke at length to the conservative podcaster Bardwell about why he believes this needs to happen. He is all in to get this bill across the finish line.

House Speaker Pat Grassley is also throwing his weight behind the discrimination omnibus. That’s a departure for him. Unlike, say, Shipley or State Senator Sandy Salmon, Grassley did not build his political brand on culture war issues. He did not co-sponsor any of the early versions of the anti-LGBTQ bills. Though it’s worth noting that he and House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl were serving in the Iowa House in 2007, and both voted against the civil rights bill adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

What about Reynolds, who introduced that wide-ranging discriminatory bill in 2024?

Among those who closely follow legislative happenings, it is widely believed that the governor has been pressuring Republican lawmakers to pass a bill erasing transgender rights. At this writing, the governor’s staff have not registered a position on the bill (typically their legislative liaison only registers on the governor’s own bills). Reynolds’ spokesperson, Mason Mauro, did not respond to my questions about the governor’s position on this proposal or civil rights for transgender Iowans more broadly.

As Iowa GOP leaders have pursued this anti-trans agenda, one countervailing force has faded away.

NO PUSHBACK FROM THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY

Once upon a time, major employers and business groups discouraged Republicans from going after LGBTQ Iowans. Such legislative crusades generated unflattering media coverage, sometimes sank investment deals, and were bad for employee recruitment and retention.

The Meredith Corporation, Wellmark, and Principal Financial Group all registered against the 2020 bill to remove gender identity from the civil rights code.

Wellmark and Principal registered against the 2021 version.

Groups that publicly opposed the 2023 effort to amend the civil rights act included the Principal Financial Group, Iowa Chamber Alliance, Greater Des Moines Partnership, Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, and some local chamber groups.

Business entities were late to the party in 2024, but eventually the the Iowa Business Council, Technology Association of Iowa, and Greater Des Moines Partnership registered against Shipley’s bill. None of them weighed in against the governor’s anti-trans bill, though.

A broad coalition of organizations quickly registered against House Study Bill 242. But at this writing, not a single corporation or business lobby group has lifted a finger to stop it. It’s not profitable to stand up for a vulnerable population that Republicans have demonized. Doing so could jeopardize other legislative priorities, like business tax cuts and deregulation.

FLAWED PREMISES

You may be wondering: how did this issue become a priority for GOP leaders? Why are they fast-tracking a bill targeting less than 1 percent of Iowa’s population, instead of setting a funding level for K-12 schools (already overdue) or addressing problems affecting hundreds of thousands of Iowans, like low wages, dirty water, a high cancer rate, or the lack of affordable housing and child care?

Across the country, the right-wing noise machine has been whipping up anti-trans sentiment for years. But for now, let’s focus on how Holt and Grassley justified their latest push.

Holt did not respond to my questions about the bill and why he changed his mind after burying similar legislation in the recent past. He outlined his reasoning in comments provided to other media outlets. He told the Cedar Rapids Gazette, “Current Iowa code actually results in the infringement of many other Iowans’ rights, particularly women. I believe we must take action.”

I have not found a single example of an Iowa athlete who lost out due to competition from a transgender peer. When it comes to infringing on the rights of women and girls, the undisputed champion is the state of Iowa, which took bodily autonomy away from some 600,000 people of child-bearing age. As for threats to personal safety, women are assaulted by straight men (most often their own spouse or intimate partner) every day. I am not aware of any assault committed by any transgender Iowan in a bathroom or locker room.

Wichtendahl wanted to “call bullshit” on the idea that this bill is about protecting women. In reality, she said, the bill will lead to harassment of other women, such as through “transvestigating” (a tactic directed more frequently at women of color).

On Bardwell’s podcast, Holt complained about the cost of gender-affirming care for Medicaid recipients and incarcerated people. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2019 that the the state can’t ban coverage of gender-affirming surgery through the Medicaid program.

According to Holt, Iowa taxpayers have spent $1,950,613 for gender-affirming care through Medicaid since 2015. That’s less than $2 million over a ten-year period.

Taxpayers will fork out more than $300 million next year on private school vouchers alone. However strongly Holt objects to gender-affirming care, many others feel just as strongly that Iowans who aren’t Christian or Catholic shouldn’t have to pay for the religious education of other people’s children.

The Gazette quoted Holt as saying,

“Over the past few years, the Iowa Legislature has passed a number of common sense policies at the urging of Iowans, such as protections for girls’ sports, locker rooms, and restrooms and prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors. I have reached the conclusion that these policies that are overwhelmingly supported by Iowans are at risk so long as gender identity remains a protected class in Iowa code. …

“So long as gender identity remains in Iowa Code, the other common sense policies we have passed on this issue are at risk of suffering the same fate in court. This is why I believe we must act.”

House Speaker Grassley echoed that sentiment in comments to the Des Moines Register.

“Because of a court decision citing gender identity in Iowa code, taxpayers have been paying for hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgeries for Iowans on Medicaid,” Grassley said. “Additionally, we have recently passed common sense protections regarding girls’ sports, locker rooms, and restrooms and prohibiting sex reassignment surgeries on minors. These are common sense policies Iowans have begged us to take action on and supported in subsequent elections. It has become clear because of that court decision, that those popular policies are at risk as long as gender identity remains specified in the civil rights code.”

It’s sad to see how poorly the House speaker and Judiciary chair grasp basic concepts about liberty. Civil rights laws are a backstop against the tyranny of the majority. Those laws exist to stop the dominant group from trampling on the rights of a disfavored group.

Discriminatory laws can be very popular. A Gallup survey from 1958 found that 94 percent of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. The first nationwide Gallup poll to show majority approval of marriage between Blacks and whites was taken in 1997—three decades after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state bans on interracial marriage as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Speaking of which, Holt’s bill raises serious practical and constitutional problems—which he does not acknowledge.

DENYING THE OBVIOUS

Max Mowitz of One Iowa observed that Holt’s bill “would wreak havoc on the lives of transgender people across the state, upending their ability to do basic things like rent an apartment or get a credit card.” Without gender identity in the civil rights code, it would be legal to fire, evict, or deny education or services to someone solely for being transgender or perceived to be transgender.

Holt claims none of that will happen. He told the Des Moines Register, “We do not believe that the transgender community will lose any protections.” He told Bardwell, “We have removed gender identity as a protected class, but transgender individuals will continue to have the same rights as you and I sitting here, Oliver. They’re protected by the United States Constitution, they’re protected by the Bill of Rights, they’re protected by the Iowa Constitution.” He repeated that talking point in his latest newsletter.

It’s false.

Federal law doesn’t prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Lohse, a House Republican who is an attorney as well as a Judiciary Committee member, explained his reasons for opposing House Study Bill 242 in a February 22 Facebook post. Without mentioning Holt by name, he refuted the bill sponsor’s points.

It has been stated that in these areas, federal law is available to provide the same protections. If that is correct, then why even bother removing it from Iowa code? However, this is not accurate.

Employment discrimination (which may or may not include wage discrimination) is afforded only through caselaw. In housing, discrimination is prohibited only through an administrative rule of the federal Fair Housing Act and is a rule that is not likely to continue on the books.

I cannot, in good conscience, vote to take away existing statutory rights from Iowans currently holding them, especially when it means the prospect of being denied basic human needs.

Although Holt has repeatedly claimed the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bostock decision from 2020 will protect transgender people from discrimination in employment or housing, that case had nothing to do with housing. We don’t even know whether the U.S. Supreme Court would still follow the Bostock majority’s reasoning in employment law—saying that bans on sex discrimination also protect LGBTQ employees—because the case was decided before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.

The Iowa Supreme Court already rejected the logic of Bostock in a 2022 case known as Vroegh, the ACLU’s McRoberts pointed out in a February 22 interview. In that case, the justices followed an Iowa Supreme Court ruling from 1983 (Sommers v. Iowa Civil Rights Commission), which held that the state’s prohibition on sex discrimination was enacted “‘to place women on an equal footing with men in the workplace,’ not to forbid discrimination against transgender people.”

“Because our sex discrimination statute is so narrow,” McRoberts told me, the gender identity provision goes well beyond protecting transgender people, even though that was its original intent in 2007. That code language means Iowa employers can’t discriminate based on outward expression or stereotypes. A man can’t be fired because his voice is too high. A woman can’t be sidelined because her employer feels she looks too masculine.

Along the same lines, Mowitz warned that Holt’s bill would “weaken protections for intersex and cisgender Iowans who fail to meet the rigid gender assumptions contained within.”

Holt seems to understand his bill would enable discrimination at work or in public accommodations. He wrote in his latest newsletter that if gender identity is removed from the civil rights code, transgender individuals “will not be able to file legal complaints against a business that believes sex is binary and acts accordingly,” and “will not have the ability to file legal complaints against an employer who does not affirm the validity of an individual’s self-proclaimed Gender Identity.”

EQUAL PROTECTION PROBLEMS

At least two aspects of House Study Bill 242 could be challenged under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Rejecting gender identity on birth certificates

Lohse and Wichtendahl both suggested to me that the bill’s birth certificate provisions raise equal protection problems. Lohse noted that if someone had gender reassignment and changed their birth certificate in a different state to reflect their gender identity, Iowa would have to recognize that document under the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause. Yet a transgender Iowan could not obtain a new birth certificate with the same information.

Since part of the bill indicates that birth certificates are presumed correct if issued “at or near the time” of birth, Wichtendahl wondered whether Iowa would recognize updated birth certificates trans people might have received in other states.

McRoberts told me it is “completely unreasonable for a birth certificate to be treated almost like a chronological title to a car. If the birth certificate doesn’t actually reflect who the person is, then what’s the point of it?” He noted that we’re not talking about very many people. “It’s critical that identification documents like a birth certificate or a driver’s license or a passport accurately reflect the person. That’s what they’re for, that’s what they’re supposed to do.” McRoberts said he “can’t see any rational basis” for that provision.

“Rational basis” is the lowest level of scrutiny that courts use when considering a law challenged as unconstitutional. The state would have to show some legitimate interest that is rationally related to the law in question.

Taking protections away from one group

McRoberts zeroed in on another problem, which he also raised during the subcommittee on last year’s effort to remove gender identity as a protected class. (You can listen to his testimony from that January 31, 2024 hearing here.)

In a 1996 case known as Romer v. Evans, the U.S. Supreme Court held that when a legislature grants a right that they were not constitutionally required to grant, then it would be an equal protection violation for that legislature to revoke that right. The Iowa legislature was “under no obligation” to add sexual orientation or gender identity to the civil rights act in 2007, McRoberts said. So removing either of those provisions now “puts you on the hook for a very clear equal protection violation under Romer.”

The Romer case stemmed from a Colorado ballot initiative (Amendment 2), which banned any state or local entities from prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Like House Study Bill 242, the Colorado constitutional amendment nullified “specific legal protections for this targeted class in all transactions in housing, sale of real estate, insurance, health and welfare services, private education, and employment.” The Supreme Court held that it “seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class it affects; it lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests.”

UNDERMINING CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS FOR OTHER GROUPS

Lohse argued in his Facebook post that the bill “would create huge changes” to Iowa’s civil rights code, which could have unintended consequences. “These changes are immensely negative and do nothing to advance the stated goals of the bill.”

He elaborated on those concerns in a February 22 interview. The line stating that “Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal” would apply to everything in the civil rights area. “Think about that in the context of racial discrimination, sex discrimination, plain man/woman discrimination, religious discrimination,” he said. The statement applies to all of those, “not just to gender identity” or which bathroom a person can use.

Wichtendahl agreed that this language could open the door to other kinds of discrimination based on sex or race. She noted “how obsessed these Republicans are about DEI” (diversity, equity, and inclusion programs) and accusing women or people of color of being “DEI hires.”

Another line that struck Lohse as problematic: “Any state law, policy, or program that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex shall be construed to forbid unfair treatment of females or males in relation to similarly situated members of the opposite sex.” He emphasized that current law protects people not only from “unfair treatment,” but also from “unfair practices” that have a disparate impact.

From Lohse’s perspective, this bill would cut in half the protection women have in the workplace. “In the civil rights code, when it comes to sex discrimination, man/woman discrimination, it’s not just unfair treatment, it’s unfair treatment and unfair practices.” In talking with others about this part of House Study Bill 242, “This potentially and probably cuts out the entire protection of unfair practices.”

“With every bill, there’s some sort of unintended consequence,” Lohse told me. Legislators often come back later and fix mistakes in the code. “But we’re not talking about a tiny little bill,” he said. “This is a big-ass bill.” And there are “some huge glaring misses here.”

CAN THIS BILL BE STOPPED?

Normally, it takes 51 votes to pass any bill in the Iowa House. But because of the vacancy in House district 100, the chamber now has only 99 elected members (66 Republicans and 33 Democrats). That means a bill can pass with a constitutional majority of 50 votes.

To defeat House Study Bill 242, at least seventeen Republicans would either need to join Democrats in voting no, or be absent from the debate. (I hear influenza is going around the capitol.)

So far, only two House Republicans have publicly disavowed the bill: Lohse and State Representative Austin Harris, who is the only out gay Republican ever to serve in the Iowa legislature. A few hours after the bill dropped, Harris posted on X/Twitter, “I will oppose stripping Iowans of their civil rights protections with every fiber of my being.”

Several other House Republicans have voted against one or more of the anti-trans bills enacted in previous years. In addition to Lohse, State Representatives Chad Ingels, Megan Jones, and Hans Wilz voted against the school bathroom bill. Lohse, Ingels, Jones, Wilz, and Shannon Latham voted against the gender-affirming care ban, and Michael Bergan later put a note in the House Journal explaining that he meant to oppose that bill as well.

There is relatively little time for the public to weigh in on this bill. The Iowa legislature’s website has contact information for all members of the House and Senate.

If you write to your own representative, make sure to mention you live in their district. Legislators often pay more attention to their constituents than to Iowans they don’t represent.

Harris and Lohse are probably receiving a lot of unpleasant messages from the MAGA crowd and social conservatives. So it would be good to let them know you appreciate that they were brave enough to go public with their stance on the bill.

The 21 members of the House Judiciary Committee (fourteen Republicans and seven Democrats) need to hear from as many Iowans as possible. Even if you already know how they will vote on House Study Bill 242, make your case. Try to personalize the message, rather than copying and pasting a form letter.

To stop the bill in committee, at least four Republicans on the Judiciary panel would need to join all seven Democrats in opposition. That’s a heavy lift, but Lohse already said he’s voting no. State Representatives Charley Thomson and John Wills served on the House subcommittee that considered and unanimously rejected the 2024 proposal to amend the civil rights act.

Most House Republicans haven’t taken a public position on this legislation. It’s worth writing to all of them, especially new members. Don’t assume you know how they feel about the issue.

You can also leave a public comment about the bill on this page of the legislature’s website.

I have not yet seen a companion bill in the Iowa Senate. But it would not hurt to reach out to state senators, especially those serving on the Judiciary and State Government committees, because Senate leaders could fast-track a bill this week.

To keep up with legislative threats to LGBTQ Iowans, sign up for action alerts from One Iowa and Iowa Safe Schools (email info AT iowasafeschools.org and ask for action alerts).