Transgender parent drops Iowa City school bathroom lawsuit

A transgender parent Tuesday dismissed his legal challenge to an Iowa City Community School District policy that restricts bathroom use based on biological sex.

That policy reflects a state law enacted last year — colloquially known as the "bathroom bill" — that bars transgender students and others from using a gender-specific school bathroom that jibes with their gender identities but not their sex assigned at birth.

The lawsuit was filed against the Iowa City school district in February by Finn Meadows, whose child attends Liberty High School in North Liberty.

The suit was among the reasons state lawmakers recently eliminated gender identity as a protected class in Iowa.

It’s unclear whether that change led Meadows to drop the lawsuit Tuesday.

Court records did not indicate a reason, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, which was representing him in court, declined to elaborate.

“We don’t share private attorney-client communications about litigation strategy or decision making in our cases, but we at the ACLU remain committed to doing everything we can to protect the rights of transgender Iowans in this increasingly hostile environment,” said Rita Bettis Austen, the group’s legal director.

Meadows, in a complaint last year to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, said he had used men's public restrooms for about 17 years before school officials told him by phone that he "was no longer allowed to use the men's restroom in school facilities."

The commission did not determine his civil rights were violated, at least in part because last year's legislation specified that policies similar to the Iowa City schools’ were not violations, according to records filed in district court.

But the commission said he could file a lawsuit, which he did Feb. 17.

On Monday, the Iowa Attorney General's Office petitioned to participate in the lawsuit proceedings. Attorney General Brenna Bird argued she might be affected by the results of the lawsuit because the new law specifically tasks her with enforcing it.

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"I'm fighting to make sure parents don't have to worry about grown adults using the wrong restrooms in their children's schools," Bird said in a statement.

She described the lawsuit’s withdrawal Tuesday as a “victory.”

Three school incidents

Meadows based his complaint to the civil rights commission on three incidents over the course of about six months at Liberty High.

The first was in April 2023, when Meadows used a bathroom designated for females after school officials directed him to. He was attending a school musical.

"No one said anything verbally to me, but several women looked at me and appeared very uncomfortable by my presence," the complaint said.

The lawsuit claims the incident made it publicly known for the first time in the school community that he is transgender.

In May 2023, Meadows had to wait an extended period of time to use a single-occupancy bathroom during a band concert. He said using a female bathroom "felt too uncomfortable." There was no wait at the male bathroom.

Then in September 2023, Meadows used a male bathroom at the school's football stadium because there was no unisex bathroom outside and he was unable to gain entrance to the high school.

"The entire experience was very uncomfortable because I felt that I had to choose between my own safety and following the school's rules," the complaint said.

The blowback

Republican state lawmakers used Meadows' lawsuit as partial justification to remove gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

It had been added to the act by Democrats in 2007. The designation was meant to protect transgender residents from discrimination in employment, public accommodations and other situations.

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Rep. Steve Holt, a Denison Republican, characterized Meadows as someone who rejected a "reasonable accommodation in the form of a private restroom.“

"This individual was not satisfied, demanding to go into the restroom with males," Holt said when speaking in support of Senate File 418.

He also said the civil rights protection led the city of Pella to allow a transgender teenage boy to swim topless at its public pool. And he claimed that a female college student in Des Moines encountered "a fully naked, middle-aged biological male" in a locker room who was a transgender woman.

"These are just a few examples right here in Iowa of the direct impact of gender identity, based on feelings, in the Iowa Civil Rights code," Holt said.

The recently adopted change to that law takes effect in July.

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