Hundreds of Iowans flooded the capitol in Des Moines in protest of a bill that takes away certain civil rights protections. A hearing voting on HSB 242 took place on February 27th at 9:30 a.m. It passed and Governor Kim Reynolds signed it to become law the next day.
The bill, now SF 418, repeals gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, legalizing discrimination against all trans Iowans. The law will take effect on June 1st, the start of pride month.
Iowa has become well-known for proposing bills that discriminate against its trans citizens. Several have actually passed including bathroom bills that prevent trans Iowans from using the restroom that aligns with their identity, and restricting access to gender affirming care. Also the banning of trans athletes for having an ‘advantage’ despite scientific studies that show trans women actually have a physical disadvantage due to weaker strength in the lower body, and that they perform worse on cardiovascular tests than cisgender (not trans) athletes.
These bills are highly concerning to many Iowans like Alex Grapp, a language arts teacher here at Ames High. While unsurprised the bill passed, it was still frustrating.
“It wasn’t shocking, we kind of figured it would pass at that point. But, it’s still discouraging,” Grapp said. “You just hope… it’s nice to think that other people in the world care about you and don’t wish the worst for you, and it’s hard with this bill passing to see how that’s the case, especially if you’re trans.”
There are practical concerns about SF 418 such as housing and discrimination in the workplace. Someone could be denied a bank loan, or fired from their job because of their identity.
While Grapp does worry about how the bill will directly affect his students, equally distressing is how it will affect their mental health and how they view themselves.
“I also just worry about how it affects my trans students with self identity and just their perceptions of themselves as worthy of being around. Especially teenagers, they’re just trying to find their place in the world,” he explained.
Everest Feely, a trans sophomore, has put a lot of work into being confident with who he is. He says that because of this and his supportive family, SF 418 doesn’t affect how he sees himself. However, he still worries for the state of this country and the people in it.
“This issue is larger than just a transgender one, and I know that they’re already rolling back rights for immigrants and people of color as a whole. And I just worry what it could turn into and how it’s already negatively affecting transgender people who don’t have as supportive of a family as I do,” Feely said.
In fact, it’s not just Iowa coming in with these bills, similar heavy handed legislation is spreading throughout the country. HB 1038 inhibits health care for trans minors in Washington. In Oklahoma, HB 1361 prohibits students and staff from asking about pronouns. A bill in Texas has been proposed that actually makes identifying as transgender a state felony, which can be punishable by jail time.
Many of the reasons that legislators who promote these bills offer up are quite controversial. For example, Governor Reynolds has said that this bill protects the rights of women and girls.
“It is why we have men and women’s bathrooms, but not men and women’s conference rooms; girls’ and boys’ sports, but not girls’ math and boys’ math; separate men and women’s prisons, but not different laws for men and women. It is about the biological differences, and that is all,” Reynolds stated after signing SF418.
There are several issues with this statement though, like this bill allows discrimination against trans women and girls. Or how it can also apply to cisgender Iowans who don’t openly project their ‘sex assigned at birth.’ For example, a man who dresses a certain way, or a woman with short hair; anyone who is ‘perceived’ as trans.
“It’s a rhetorical sleight of hand that they do with ‘protecting women’s rights.’ Like, if they really cared about women’s rights, why are they so anti abortion etc., right?” Grapp said. “Maybe they really believe that they’re protecting women, but I think there’s a lot of better ways to do that than getting mad about things that don’t happen.”
Other points made against the claims that anti-trans legislation protects women include the fact that you can’t assume anything about an immutable identity.
“There’s nothing inherently predatory about being white, straight, or an able bodied person,” Feely stated. “And I think if you flip that statement on its head and say, ‘well, we need to protect our women and children from cisgender people,’ then every single cisgender person out there would say, ‘that’s not logical, because it’s just who I am.’ And being transgender, that’s just who we are.”
If he could talk to the Governor of Iowa, Grapp would invite her to a Spectrum meeting (Spectrum is a group for LGBTQIA+ students at Ames High). He thinks it could be beneficial for her to actually meet and speak with the people that her legislation is hurting.
“Like, hey, Governor Reynolds, come to my classroom, come to spectrum meetings. Get to know these kids, learn about and talk to them, really sit down and listen to these kids and learn about how this stuff is affecting them. I don’t know how you can be a human being and talk to the kids that I know, hear about their experiences and not… and then turn around and say, yeah, we need to take gender identity away as a civil right,” Grapp said.
As a matter of fact, she claims to have spoken with transgender kids about previous legislation. Back in 2023 Governor Reynolds signed a pair of bills having to do with gender identity. One was a bathroom bill, the other banned gender affirming care. She described speaking with trans kids and their parents.
“My heart breaks,” Reynolds said. “I’ve sat down and met with them. It’s not easy. It’s not easy for me either. It’s not easy for our elected officials to make these decisions. So I just, I hope they know that.”
Despite speaking with Iowans whom these bills are harmful to, she continued to push for other legislation such as SF 418. Iowans who are tired of these bills have been speaking out. Feely described a student-led demonstration that his mother witnessed near her workplace.
“When my mom saw them, she thought of me, and she thought of my friends, and she thought of everyone who could be affected by these laws. There’s adults out there who care about you, and there’s people out there who care about you as a whole, and it’s important not to forget that just because a vocal minority of people are so hell bent on being hateful,” Feely said.
