Aime Wichtendahl works as public servant for Hiawatha, advocate for transgender Iowans

HIAWATHA — Aime Wichtendahl says she went into public service to help make her community a better place.

As a member of the Hiawatha City Council for the past seven years, Wichtendahl said she has enjoyed working to lower property taxes, expand transportation infrastructure and expand recreational opportunities.

But in recent years — and especially this year — Wichtendahl has felt compelled to participate in government from another perspective: as an advocate.

Wichtendahl, a transgender woman, has traveled to the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines on three occasions this year to express her opposition to myriad pieces of legislation that would have a significant impact on LGBTQ Iowans, especially transgender youth.

Wichtendahl has testified at a legislative hearing on one of the proposals, spoke at a rally in opposition to the bills, and was recognized by a state lawmaker in observance of International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Wichtendahl says she has always considered herself an advocate for transgender rights, and has spoken in public before.

“Bigotry can’t be allowed to be disguised as policy. You have to push back on these things, because if you don’t push back, then it just becomes accepted and then it’s allowed to metastasize and get worse,” she said, calling the bills “blatant transphobia.”

“That can’t go unchallenged,” she said.

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Wichtendahl is 43 years old and, as she describes it, “happily divorced” with an 18-year-old son. She was born in Minnesota but moved with her family to Iowa when she was 7 years old, and has been here ever since. She jokes that she’s the only one from her family who didn’t leave the state.

She has lived in the Cedar Rapids area since 2001, and in Hiawatha since 2007. She was first elected to the City Council in 2015, when she ran on a campaign platform of supporting small businesses.

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Wichtendahl says she has enjoyed her time on the council. She praises the group for its ability to work together on issues and projects that are important to the community regardless of the council members’ political leanings.

“It’s been an exciting time to be in Hiawatha,” Wichtendahl said, highlighting things like the Tower Terrace interchange, property tax reductions, new parks, new green energy sources, and the first multifamily apartments built in the community in 25 years.

“Those are wonderful and exciting things,” she said. “And I love doing that … tremendously proud of that.”

Wichtendahl says she hopes to continue serving Hiawatha, and plans to run for re-election this fall. Her current four-year term ends in December.

In the meantime, Wichtendahl has made those trips to Des Moines in an effort to sway lawmakers who have been considering LGBTQ-related bills. Among the proposals that have been considered this year by the Iowa Legislature:

The gender-affirming care ban and so-called bathroom bill have passed the Iowa Legislature — with support only from Republican lawmakers — and have been signed into law by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. They could potentially face a court challenge, although no legal action has yet been taken.

The policy on graphic materials has been moving through the Legislature — again, with only Republican support — and could be advanced to Reynolds’ desk in the next few weeks.

Republicans and supporters of the legislation have said they believe that the science is not settled on gender-affirming care, even though every major American medical organization says the treatments are safe. And they say the bathroom policy is a matter of common sense, that individuals should use bathrooms that match their biological sex.

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When asked why she has felt compelled to offer her perspective to the debate over these bills at the Iowa Capitol, Wichtendahl pushed back at the framing of the question.

“To be honest, I guess I take a little bit of issue with the word debate, because it’s not a debate. We’re just trying to live our lives, and the government is getting in the way of that,” she said. “These laws are unjust and fundamentally unconstitutional and represent probably one of the single largest rollbacks of civil rights in Iowa history, for at least the last 50 years or more.”

Wichtendahl said she initially went to the Iowa Capitol with optimism that lawmakers would hear the perspectives of transgender Iowans and abandon their plans. She said gender identity has been a part of Iowa’s Civil Rights Act for 15 years without incident, and noted that there have been no examples of an incident in an Iowa bathroom involving a transgender person, or of a transgender person from Iowa undergoing transition treatment and later regretting it.

With some of the measures already passed into law and others on their way, Wichtendahl said she remains optimistic that in time the laws will be undone. She said that would be her message to young transgender Iowans.

“I know things are hard right now, and it’s going to be a bumpy road ahead. I do believe that,” she said. “Justice is sometimes a long road, but I do believe that will be done, and I do believe that these heinous bills will be escorted to the dustbin of history in due time.”

She noted, for comparison, that in 2004 a dozen states passed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, and 11 years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled those bans unconstitutional, making same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

“So I do think that, yes, this will be a long road. But we will, at the end of the day, see justice done,” Wichtendahl said. “Keep your head up. It know it’s not easy, but the future is always better with you in it.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com