UPDATE: Following committee passage, this bill was renumbered House File 583. The companion legislation is Senate File 418. Both chambers approved the bill on February 27, and Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 418 into law the following day. The law will go into effect on July 1, 2025. Original post follows.

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.

Tenth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Across the country, voters elected a record number of women to serve in state legislatures in 2024. About a third of all U.S. state lawmakers will be women next year, and in seven state legislative chambers, women will comprise 50 percent or more of members.

In contrast, the 2024 elections moved the Iowa legislature further away from gender parity. The decline was steeper in the state House, where Iowans elected fewer women than at any point since 2014. A retirement produced a smaller drop in female representation in the upper chamber.

Education is shaping up to be a defining issue in an open-seat race for a strongly Republican Iowa House district.

State Representative Stan Gustafson, who currently represents House district 22, is planning to retire at the end of his current term. Samantha Fett, a former Carlisle school board member and chapter leader of Moms for Liberty, announced last month that she will seek the Republican nomination. Fett has spoken at several Iowa House or Senate meetings during the past two years, urging lawmakers to approve various education-related or anti-LGBTQ bills.

Garrett Gobble announced his candidacy for the same district in a September 8 Facebook post. He previously represented part of Ankeny in the Iowa House for one term. A recent guest commentary for the Des Moines Register indicated that Gobble hopes Governor Kim Reynolds and groups focused on school policies will stay out of his upcoming race.

Former Iowa House Republican Garrett Gobble recently filed paperwork to run for the legislature in 2024—but not in the Ankeny-based district he represented for two years.

Gobble lost his 2022 re-election bid in House district 42 by 23 votes to Democrat Heather Matson, whom he had narrowly defeated in 2020.

A statement of organization filed with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board last month indicates Gobble will be a 2024 Republican candidate in Iowa House district 22, which covers Norwalk, Cumming, Carlisle, and other areas of Warren County outside Indianola.