School bathroom issue drives bill to strike gender ID from Civil Rights Act; final vote set for Thursday
Republican state lawmakers are one step closer to passing a bill that would strike all mentions of "gender identity" from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The bill stems from a lawsuit that accuses the Iowa City School District of denying a transgender man access to the public men's restroom.
Republican state lawmakers are one step closer to passing a bill that would strike all mentions of "gender identity" from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The bill stems from a lawsuit that accuses the Iowa City School District of denying a transgender man access to the public men's restroom.
Republican state lawmakers are one step closer to passing a bill that would strike all mentions of "gender identity" from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The bill stems from a lawsuit that accuses the Iowa City School District of denying a transgender man access to the public men's restroom.
Republican lawmakers are one step closer to passing a bill that would strike all mentions of "gender identity" from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
Identical versions of the bill in the House and Senate are on track for a final vote Thursday, one week after the legislation was introduced. If passed, the legislation could go to the governor's desk for a signature by Thursday night.
House File 583 advanced through subcommittee and committee Monday. A Senate subcommittee passed Senate File 418, the same legislation, through subcommittee Tuesday, and the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill on Wednesday.
Iowans will have a final opportunity to provide in-person comment on the bill during a public hearing Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in room 103 at the Iowa Statehouse.
Speakers must sign up ahead of the hearing through .
Sen. Jason Schultz (R-Schleswig) said, "the effort started with a recent filing of a lawsuit" during the Wednesday Senate Judiciary Committee meeting.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Finnegan Meadows, a transgender man, against Liberty High School, where Meadows' daughter attended school, and the Iowa City Community School District.
It accuses school administrators of denying Meadows access to the public men's restroom because of his gender identity, citing a that bans Iowans from using multi-occupancy school restrooms that do not match their sex at birth.
The lawsuit also states that the "Iowa Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in public accommodations based on gender identity."
"We find ourselves in a peculiar position of being the only state in the country in which we have the words gender identity and civil rights code and also protections for women, children and taxpayers," Shultz said in committee. "They are at odds."
Schultz said striking gender identity from Iowa's civil rights code would also protect Iowa laws that ban minors from receiving gender transition procedures and transgender girls from playing girls sports.
Opponents of the bill said it extends far beyond bathrooms and high school athletics.
"What's at stake here is telling a transgender person, who may have children, 'No, we're not going to allow you to have an apartment because of your transgender status," Sen. Herman Quirmbach (D-Ames) said. "The bill in front of us would legalize discrimination in employment. It would authorize employers to say to a transgender person, no matter how well that person performs their job, no matter how much merit they have and how much qualifications, they can fire them, or they can deny them being hired in the first place."
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Iowa is one of 23 states, and the District of Columbia, to extend civil rights protections to transgender Iowans. Iowa's Civil Rights Act provides protection, in areas including housing, employment, credit and education, from discrimination based on characteristics like gender identity.
If the proposal lawmakers are considering is signed into law, those protections would no longer extend to Iowans.
Schultz noted that several other states do not provide those protections. He pushed back on the argument that striking gender identity from Iowa's civil rights code would strip transgender Iowans of basic freedoms.
"Twenty-eight states do not have the words gender identity in their code at all," Schultz said. "Does anybody here want to go to Austin and round up a bus full of folks who are kicked out on the street or denied food or denied credit? That's just ridiculous."
If Iowa removed gender identity from its civil rights code, it would be the first state to do so.
"We will be one, the first in this nation to take rights that have been granted to a group of individuals and pull them away," Sen. Matt Blake (D-Urbandale) said during committee. "That is a legacy I want no part of."
Thursday's public hearing on the bill is expected to draw protestors back to the Statehouse. Several hundred packed the rotunda Monday, chanting "trans rights are human rights" as the bill cleared its first hurdle in a House subcommittee. Dozens stood with signs outside the Senate subcommittee Tuesday.