Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation to remove ‘gender identity’ from the state’s nondiscrimination code, saying the law previously undermined equal protection for women and girls.
DES MOINES, Iowa (LifeSiteNews) -- Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation Friday to remove “gender identity” from the state’s nondiscrimination code, eliminating one of the pillars of LGBT activists' efforts to force a “right” to "transition" procedures, access to opposite-sex facilities, and more through the courts.
House File 583 deletes “gender identity” as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which had first been amended to add it in 2007. It also clarifies that “gender,” when “used alone in reference to males, females, or the natural differences between males and females shall not be considered a synonym for sex and shall not be considered a synonym or shorthand expression for gender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.”
Last Thursday, it passed the Iowa Senate 33-15 and the House 60-35, both times along party lines. Reynolds signed it into law the next day, the Daily Caller reported.
“It is necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls. It’s why we have men and women’s bathrooms but not men and women’s conference rooms; girls’ and boys’ sport but not girls’ math and boys’ math; separate men and women’s prisons but not different laws for men and women,” she said. “Unfortunately, these common-sense protections were at risk because, before I signed this bill, the civil rights code blurred the biological line between the sexes.”
HF 583 has been the target of intense protests, with hundreds gathered inside and outside the Capitol building this week chanting “trans rights are human rights” and “we’re here, we’re queer, we will not disappear” and bearing signs making Holocaust comparisons. The final votes elicited booing and “who’s next?” taunts from the chambers’ galleries.
However, Reynolds responded that the new law “simply brings Iowa in line with the federal civil rights code and with most states,” ensuring taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidize "gender transitions.”
Making “gender identity” a protected criteria for "nondiscrimination" purposes creates a basis to claim that there is a legal entitlement to such policies, undermining the original purpose of nondiscrimination law by overriding the ability to make rational, benign distinctions between the sexes even when they are directly relevant to a policy, service, or facility. The Biden administration tried to redefine federal nondiscrimination law to force that understanding into the existing definition of “sex” but was struck down.
