The Iowa legislature gave final approval to a bill that removes ‘gender identity’ from the state’s nondiscrimination law, dealing a blow to LGBT activists and their push for ‘gender transitions’ and pro-transgender policies.
DES MOINES (LifeSiteNews) -- The Iowa legislature has given final approval to a bill 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.”
On Thursday, it passed the Iowa Senate 33-15 and the House 60-35, both times along party lines. It now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has not yet commented on the matter but is expected to sign it.
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.
“There’s been a lot of false hyperbole on the floor of this chamber today,” said Republican state Rep. Steven Holt, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Clearly, in my opinion, Democrats do not want to talk about the reality of the erasing of women as a result of gender identity based on feelings being elevated to a protected class status in the Iowa code.”
It is a tenant of progressivism that "gender" is no more than a matter of self-perception that individuals are free to change at will. But according to biology, sex is not a subjective sense of self but an objective scientific reality, established by an individual’s chromosomes from their earliest moments of existence and reflected by hundreds of genetically-based characteristics.
Yet, for years, LGBT activists have worked to promote “gender fluidity,” the false idea that sexual "identity" is separate from biology and discernible only by personal perception, across public education, libraries, health care, and cultural traditions such as school homecomings and athletic competitions.
Critics note that their efforts have yielded a wide array of harms, both to the physical and mental health of gender-confused individuals themselves as well as to the rights, health, and safety of those who disagree, such as girls and women forced to share intimate facilities with males, female athletes forced to compete against gender-confused males with natural physical advantages, and individuals forced to affirm false sexual identities in violation of their consciences, scientific fact, and/or their religious beliefs.
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.
