The Iowa Legislature removed gender identity from civil rights law. Here’s why it should never have been added

Of all the testimony I saw last week as Iowa legislators debated removing gender identity protections from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, it was comments from Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, that piqued my interest as he challenged Rep. Steve Holt, floor manager of the bill, on immutable characteristics subject to civil rights protections and whether they are truly immutable.

“What about disability?” said Wilburn. “Ten years ago, I didn’t have arthritis. I have arthritis now. It may progress and proceed over time.”

Oh, it will. This I know. Thanks to childhood arthritis, I was barely 16 when I had my first hip replaced. By the time I was 21, my other hip, a wrist, both knees and both shoulders had been replaced. Today, 12 of my joints are surgically altered.

To Rep. Wilburn’s point, arthritis can be very, very disabling. In my case, tremendously so.

And it’s no picnic. As I write this, a dull, persistent ache has lingered on my left side for days, just behind my shoulder. Every time I turn my head a searing pain stretches through my neck and upper back. Even lying still has proved agonizing at times. Pain is an experience I don’t recommend.

Not much can mitigate it. I took prescription opioids responsibly for over 19 years, but when I realized they were exacerbating my vicious headaches, I quit them cold turkey. (Speaking of experiences I don’t recommend.) Additional surgeries will be more complicated than a standard joint replacement, not to mention painful and time-consuming.

What would truly solve my problems would be to have a whole different body.

I know a number of people who struggle with gender identity who feel the same. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone.

But I also know the difference between reality and perception. And it is not appropriate to enshrine legal protections for conditions based on perceptions that conflict with reality.

One of the most seismic activities of the 2025 session of the Iowa Legislature took place last week — legislation was passed to remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and signed into law Friday by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The Iowa Civil Rights Act recognizes multiple classes protected from discrimination in terms of housing, employment, education and credit. Those protections are determined based on either immutable characteristics — race, sex, disability, skin color, etc. — or sincerely held beliefs — religion, creed, etc.

Gender identity is the only recognized class for which protection requires acknowledgment or affirmation of something inherently untrue. No matter how sincerely a man believes oneself a woman, a male cannot be a female, just as a female cannot be a male no matter how strongly a woman believes oneself a man. Despite the significant ways a person can alter their body to appear as they feel, a person simply cannot change their sex. So sayeth biology.

Along with sexual orientation, gender identity was added to Iowa’s civil rights law in April 2007, with minimal but consequential Republican support. For quite a while, it wasn’t clear to many why it would be such a bad idea to include gender identity as a protected class. When I was first educated on the concept of gender dissonance and gender dysphoria, affirming a gender-nonconforming’s chosen identity was implied to be voluntary. Even if it felt a little weird, it seemed not only harmless, but decent — when done at one’s choosing.

And to this day, I believe any person who is willing and prepared to undertake the intense responsibilities that gender transition involves should have the right to do so.

But as time has progressed, affirmation has gone from being a courtesy to a demand — a demand for rights that often exceed reason.

Natal males have been allowed to compete in women’s sports despite proven physical advantages.

People of both sexes have been allowed to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that align their gender identity, regardless of the comforts or concerns of anyone else who relies on the solace of single-sex spaces.

Prepubescent children have been prescribed powerful puberty blockers with potentially terrible side effects.

Costly surgical procedures have been performed solely for cosmetic effect to mimic traits of one’s desired gender — paid for by the taxpayer as “gender-affirming care” for Medicaid and Medicare recipients, despite medical justification that is increasingly called into doubt.

School policies were passed to allow students as young as 12 to change their name and gender in school records while requiring staff to withhold the information from their parents.

As other states began seeing fallout from nonsensical gender identity accommodations, Iowa legislators acted to prevent the same from happening here. In 2019, legislators passed a prohibition on Medicaid funds being used for gender-affirming procedures. In 2022, Gov. Reynolds signed a law limiting eligibility for girls’ sports at all scholastic levels (including collegiate) to females, based on the sex listed on an athlete’s birth certificate.

In 2023, a new law was passed requiring students in schools to use bathrooms that correspond with their sex. That same year, a separate law was passed to prohibit the prescribing of puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors.

Some resolution was found in court: In October 2023, a federal appeals court struck down part of a controversial policy in the Linn-Mar Community School District that required students to address their transgender and nonbinary peers by their preferred pronouns or risk punishment including suspension.

But other court rulings stalled Iowa’s actions. In 2019, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state could not prohibit Medicaid coverage of gender transition treatment due to gender identity being recognized as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

That ruling has called into doubt the ability for other recent legislation addressing bathroom use or sports eligibility to stand, should lawsuits be filed.

It is not accurate to state that no problems have arisen as a result gender identity protections being prioritized over other social concerns. In June 2021, for example, multiple complaints were made at the Pella Aquatic Center after a female who identified as a transgender male and was reportedly 15 years old wore male swimming attire with no top, leaving the teenager’s female breasts exposed. Furious residents who packed the next city council meeting were told that no action would be taken due to the 2007 gender identity provision in Iowa civil rights law.

“Just so you understand, the city council does not make laws, we have to abide by the law,” said Pella Mayor Don DeWaard.

Notwithstanding how dangerously inadvisable it is for an underage girl to walk around in public topless — regardless of gender identity, what parent wants to send their eight-year-old to a place where a teenage female is walking around bare-breasted? Was this what legislators had in mind when enshrining gender identity as a protected class?

Surely not. I’m certain legislators in 2007 acted in good faith, doing what they thought was the right thing. But here we are in 2025, in a vastly different world, where even asking a gender-nonconforming person to use the gender-neutral bathroom could result in a discrimination suit. Incidents happening both nationwide and in our own backyard make it clear that gender identity should never have been added to civil rights code in the first place.

Legislators were also acting in good faith last week. No one who voted for the change acted with sinister intentions or callous indifference toward the rights of transgender Iowans, no matter what the bill’s loudest opponents insist. No one is looking to inflict pain or make life more difficult for an estimated 7,100 Iowans who identify as transgender. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not acting in good faith.

Hardly any Iowan wants a transgender person prevented from finding housing or education or meaningful employment because they identify and/or present as the opposite sex. Federal laws continue to apply to ensure they are not.

But is it really not possible to protect those rights without also forcing females to compete with males — males who have larger, stronger, wider bodies? Or putting kids at risk of being exposed to genitalia of the opposite sex in the name of respecting gender identity? Or forcing taxpayers to fund ghastly, expensive cosmetic surgeries?

The protests in Des Moines last week were loud, yes, and large in volume. Maybe this is a political fight in which Republicans bit off more than they can chew. But the same was said for collective bargaining reform, voter ID, abortion restrictions and education reform.

On the other hand, maybe the losing political fight still is being fought by Democrats, whose entire message appears stuck on how mean-spirited Republicans are while they champion men wearing dresses and women with beards chanting “F*** you, fascist!” as their example.

Time will tell how things go. Here’s what’s certain already: Democrats are fighting — hard — to make you think this is all based simply on hate. It’s reality that tells us otherwise.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com