My home no longer calls me one of its own

Iowa is my home.

I grew up poor, non-white, and queer, so it was never a picture-perfect place to me, but I always considered myself lucky. Iowa has been a better place for people like me than other surrounding states, historically speaking.

We used to lead the charge on civil rights. In 1839, seven years before Iowa was even a state, the Territorial Supreme Court proclaimed that “No man in this territory can be reduced to slavery.” In 1851, we became the third state to allow interracial marriage. In 1868, the Iowa Supreme Court held that "separate" was not "equal," effectively desegregating our schools 86 years before Brown v. the Board of Education. Same-sex marriage was legalized when I was eight, and sexual orientation and gender identity was added to the Iowa Civil Rights Act two years prior, in 2007.

Iowa is my home, and I used to be proud of that.

Oh how far we’ve fallen. I came out in 2011, in 6th grade, with support from family, friends, teachers, and many in my community. Sure, there was bullying, dirty looks, and the rare call to school to complain, but overall, I was accepted and safe. I knew a lot of people in Iowa hated me for being me, but there was rarely direct confrontation. Maybe that was “Iowa Nice.”

In the 2022 election, there was no question Reynolds was going to win. She still punched down, releasing an ad stating “Iowans know right from wrong, boys from girls.” This year, legislation has been proposed that would technically make it a felony for me, in plain clothes, to speak in front of children. Worst of all: Iowa is now the first state to ever remove civil rights protections from a group of people.

It’s possible some of the discrimination we worry about won’t be allowed. There will be costly legal battles, humiliation, fear, and laser-focused hatred. But what we are scared of is what the other side wants to be reality. Iowa is my home, but why would I want to call a place home when lawmakers want me to be discriminated against — in housing, employment, wages, credit practices, public accommodations, and education?

It has nothing to do with protecting women. Sex is already a protected category under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Rather than protecting anyone, this opens the door to invasive policing of peoples’ identities and risks subjecting many to harassment and public humiliation based solely on appearances.

While unsure of the actual legal impacts of the Civil Rights Removal Act, some things we know. According to research from The Trevor Project, anti-transgender laws significantly increase suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth, by as much as 72%. They also found 90% of LGBTQ+ young people said their well-being is negatively impacted by recent politics. Iowa is my home but the lawmakers here don’t care if their actions make kids like the kid I once was feel isolated and ostracized, even if it pushes them to take their own lives. So much for protecting children.

Iowa is my home, and I deserve to belong here just as much as anyone else.

Leading up to the day of the final public hearing and passage of the bill, I was only angry. My mom would start the day by texting to check in on how I was feeling, and later, she would tell me how sorry she was that I have to deal with all of this. I was so angry about the people it would hurt that I almost felt annoyed she kept making sure I was okay.

Then, after chanting at the top of my lungs with over 2,500 other Iowans, I went home. Mother knows best, it seems. It hit me hard. I called her and couldn’t hold myself together because I realized I am not only angry.

“Mom, it hurts so bad,” I admitted. She listened, and when she replied all I could focus on was how much sadness and fear I heard in her voice. How must she feel fearing her son will face discrimination, legally, for living as his true self, something she always encouraged?

Iowa is my home, and I want it to be a place worth fighting for. A place that takes care of ALL its people.

Republican supermajorities could’ve put this amount of urgency and effort into passing any other legislation. They could be seeing to it that every child in this state gets a high-quality education instead of bleeding our public schools dry. They could be protecting our water, ensuring it’s clean enough to drink, safe for us to swim in. They could be confronting rising cancer rates, investing in healthcare access, making it easier — not harder — for Iowans to get the care they need. They could actually protect women by strengthening reproductive freedoms instead of stripping them away. The possibilities are endless.

They could be doing anything else, but they insist on making life harder for people like me. They insist on making an already vulnerable community a target for discrimination and hatred.

Iowa is my home, but is the future here worth fighting for?

Home is a place where you are known, where you are accepted, where you can breathe without fear. Home is where you grow, where you stumble, where you are allowed to exist fully as yourself without apology. It’s not just four walls and a roof, not just a town on a map. Home is community. It’s the people who show up for you, who see you, who stand beside you. Home is where you should feel protected, not persecuted. Where you should be nurtured, not pushed out.

Iowa was my home, and now I just live here.

Parker Williamson is Progress Iowa’s press secretary. He grew up in rural southwest Iowa. His writing can be found at https://ruralroutes.substack.com