One day after a bill that would have stripped legal protections for transgender people out of the Iowa Civil Rights Act was rejected in the Iowa House, Gov. Kim Reynolds introduced a new bill targeting transgender Iowans. Reynolds’ submitted HSB 649 to lawmakers a few hours after Iowa Capitol Dispatch reported on the existence of the bill in draft form.
HSB 649 would require “a person’s sex at birth to be listed along with any sex reassignment for people seeking to change their birth certificate,” Dispatch Editor Kathie Obradavich wrote. “The bill would also create a record of any sex changes on the Iowa driver’s license for people who apply to update the document after a reassignment surgery.”
The bill would have an impact well beyond creating new restrictions on transgender Iowans seeking to update their birth certificate or driver’s license to match their identity. It also introduces new definitions into Iowa Code that would have to be used in all laws and regulations.
The first section of the bill is titled “Statutory construction – sex and related terms.” It defines a female as “a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ‘ova’ and a ‘male’ as a person whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”
“The term ‘woman’ or ‘girl’ refers to a female and the term ‘man’ or ‘boy’ refers to a male,” the section continues.
“The term ‘mother’ means a parent who is female and the term ‘father’ means a parent who is male.”
The section then goes on to echo the language associated with the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which declared segregation on the basis of race to be legal.
“The term ‘equal’ does not mean ‘same’ or ‘identical,’” the bill states. “Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.”
The bill would also classify a person “born with a medically verifiable diagnosis of disorder or difference of sex development” as disabled and eligible for “legal protections and accommodations afforded under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and applicable state law.”
The governor’s office provided a written statement about the bill to the Dispatch.
“Women and men are not identical; they possess unique biological differences,” Reynolds said in the statement. “That’s not controversial, it’s common sense. Just like we did with girls’ sports, this bill protects women’s spaces and rights afforded to us by Iowa law and the constitution.”
The bill also changes how “vital statistics” are collected for “complying with state antidiscrimination laws or… [for] state public health, crime, economic or other data.” Not only would state agencies be restricted to just using the definitions in the bill, so would every “city, county, township, or school district.”
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Reynolds’ bill comes less than 24 hours after opponents of the attempt to eliminate protection against gender identity discrimination successfully pushed to have that bill killed by a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.
Hundreds of people were at the Iowa Capitol on Wednesday to show their support for transgender rights, and demand lawmakers not tamper with the state’s civil rights act, which has protected both gender identity and sexual orientation since 2007.
This was not the first time a bill to remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act has been introduced at the beginning of a legislative session, but HF 2082 was the first such bill that ever reached the subcommittee level.
Inside the committee room, some of the most powerful testimony against HF 2082 came from Hiawatha city councilmember Aime Wichtendahl. Wichtendahl made history in 2015 when she first won her seat on the council, becoming the first transgender person elected to office in Iowa. In December, Wichtendahl announced she is running for the Iowa House in District 80.
“If this leadership and this body had any dignity whatsoever, it would immediately adjourn this subcommittee and issue an apology for ever entertaining such an egregious violation of human rights,” Wichtendhal said. “This bill would make Iowa the first state in the history of the United States to repeal civil rights protections for its citizens.”
Wichtendahl told the three-person subcommittee she would “say it plain”: “We are American citizens. We are Iowans. And we do not deserve this abuse that we are getting from our government.”
Rep. Jeff Shipley, a Republican from Birmingham and the sponsor of HF 2082, defended his bill on Wednesday. Shipley, who is well-known for using blatantly transphobic rhetoric, used bigoted language while also suggesting that it was unfair to consider him a bigot.
“Children expressing themselves freely and playing make-believe is great,” he said. “That is, until the child believes their make-believe identities are entitled to robust legal protections under [the Iowa Civil Rights Act], and anyone who says otherwise is a hateful bigot.”
The bitterness and hatred conveyed by the genderqueer activists reflects the deep amount of suffering and lack of self-acceptance afflicting this “community”
Would be prudent for them to refresh themselves on “psychological projection”
— Jeff Shipley 🦁 (@JeffShipley77) January 31, 2024
The subcommittee’s two Republicans, Rep. Casey Thomson of Charles City and Rep. John Willis of Spirit Lake, joined the lone Democrat, Rep. Sami Scheetz of Cedar Rapids, in voting against the bill.
“I came into the subcommittee determined to kill this hateful bill —and we won!” Scheetz tweeted after the hearing.
While Shipley’s bill was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, the governor’s new bill has been assigned to the House Education Committee.
After Reynolds introduced HSB 649, One Iowa Action, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf on LGBTQ Iowans, issued a written statement.
The changes mandated by the bill “will ultimately require transgender people to out themselves anywhere they have to present their ID (voting, picking up a package, buying alcohol at the grocery store, etc.) Additionally, it could be interpreted to require government-owned, operated, or funded buildings to require transgender people to use the wrong single-sex restroom, including at colleges, libraries, and the DMV.”
“It could also be interpreted to discriminate in violation of the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity. Requiring government funded or run domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers to treat transgender women inconsistent with their gender identity places federal funds at risk.”
“Last but not least, it erases nonbinary people from the law entirely.”
A subcommittee to consider HSB 649 has been selected, but as of the end of day on Thursday, no date for a hearing on the bill had been announced by the end of day on Thursday.
