Iowa legislators are putting the lives of trans children at risk

Iowa legislators are putting one of the most vulnerable groups of people at risk in their state — trans youth — with the recent advancement of several anti-trans bills. On Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the bathroom bill, SF 482, and a ban on gender-affirming health care, SF 538, into law, signifying a continued attack on queer-identifying people, specifically transgender individuals. For trans youth, this is a matter of life and death. When these children don’t have access to a real support system — be it at home, school or within social services and beyond — their likelihood to make it to adulthood dwindles.

“The Iowa Legislature and Gov. Reynolds have repeatedly targeted the most vulnerable students with rhetoric and legislation designed to suppress, out, target, ban, and censor Iowa’s LGBTQ+ student communities,” said ISEA President Mike Beranek in a statement. “Despite these shameful attacks, the ISEA continues to stand with and fight for all our students.”

Since the 2016 election and the Pulse nightclub shooting, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans rhetoric and violence have been on the rise, according to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform. And that rise can be attributed in part to the rising extremist views brought from the fringes of mainstream politics to the center of the Republican Party — with some pundits even calling for the eradication of trans people. In fact, right-wing political commentator Michael Knowles, associated with the Daily Wire, spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month and said, “for the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

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Those are dangerous words — and ones that prompted reactions of horror from many, including tech expert and author Alejandra Caraballo, John Knefel of Media Matters and Adam Vary of Variety who all agreed rhetoric like this is “genocidal” in nature. There are 10 stages of genocide, according to Genocide Watch President Gregory H. Stanton: classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, persecution, extermination, denial. Right now, it appears as if Iowa is in the discrimination and dehumanization stages, where a dominant group uses laws, customs, and political power to deny the rights of other groups, as well as uses propaganda (see: Gov. Reynolds’ ad on “Iowans still know boys from girls”) to diminish the value of the discriminated group.

“This legislation is a tactic to scare people — it's a tactic to make trans people feel like they don't belong,” said Max Mowitz, program director of One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ+ organization working to preserve and advance equality through advocacy, grassroots efforts and education. “But I would say remember that you have a place in Iowa. And you're not alone. Yeah, this legislation is intended to make people feel isolated, but we're not going to let that happen.”

Growing up in Dubuque, Simon Reichel, a trans man, said he faced immense discrimination because of his identity. When he came out eight years ago, he was verbally abused by his parents and others in his Catholic community for being a transgender male, with his father even calling Reichel the “Antichrist.”

“I have never felt that sense of belonging. I've never felt comfortable in my own skin. I have thought that dying was a good alternative to trying to live in a way that I felt was not correct for me,” said Reichel, a graduate of and current dining hall cook at the University of Iowa. “What I went through with my parents, my school, my own self — with partners who took advantage of me and didn't respect me or my gender — it was horrific. And by politicians and lawmakers targeting transgender minors, they're working to decrease the number of future trans adults. But it’s not going to be, ‘Oh this person is not trans anymore.’ That person is just not going to be alive anymore.”

“People wouldn't want to put themselves through any of this — through the transition, the weird looks from people, the questions, the slurs, the judgment — unless it was serious, unless it was who they were,” Reichel said.

So, why is Iowa so concerned with the so-called threat trans children pose against their narrow-minded view of gender roles and the nuclear family? Perhaps it’s for a larger number of views and clicks on their name, an emboldened sense of entitlement when it comes to telling citizens what they can and cannot do, or something else entirely. This columnist is unsure why a group of powerful and influential people would set their sights on attacking children, who don’t have a big enough voice to defend themselves.

“There's a powerlessness but it's even more amplified as a child because you don't have those rights yet. And you physically have nowhere to go except homelessness or parentlessness, in some cases,” said Reichel.

“The reality is there are not that many transgender kids in the state — especially when they're young,” said Pete McRoberts, ACLU Iowa policy director. In fact, from what I’ve seen, there isn’t even enough data about trans youth to quantify. In total, only 3.6 percent of adults in Iowa identify as LGBTQ+, according to a survey by the Williams Institute, where there is almost certainly a significantly smaller amount of people who identify as trans. “So this demonization of kids who are going through things that most people will never understand is absolutely shameful,” said McRoberts.

For Max Mowtiz, the broader issue stems from white supremacy, colonization, and this idea that people are either a man or a woman and they must behave a certain way. “These are deeply entrenched cultural values that especially exist in a state like Iowa, “ said Mowitz. “And I think that those values have been dormant for a little while. But we continue to see anti-trans sentiment on the rise, and I think it's just because they're feeling more empowered to embrace these ideas that trans people should be outcast, as opposed to a natural part of the human condition. LGBTQ+ people have existed as long as humans have existed. But it's that intentional erasure of our histories that dehumanizes us and continues this kind of path forward to stripping our rights.”

Trans people are people. They are human beings just like you or me. All they ask is to live in their truth as every other person does, to have the liberty to pursue their happiness, an inalienable right according to our Declaration of Independence. They should not be refused their basic rights as human beings or be demonized publicly for something they cannot control. It’s important to understand trans and gender-nonconforming individuals have been here early on in human civilization, too. National Geographic took a look and found “there’s ample evidence of gender variance throughout human history,” dating back to accounts of gala and galli, priests assigned male at birth who crossed gender boundaries in their worship of a variety of goddesses in ancient Sumer, Akkadia, Greece, and Rome. Trans people have been here. They are here today. They exist and they are entitled to the same basic human rights as the rest of us.

It’s also interesting to think about the core values that the Republican Party has been founded on — limited government and individualism, recognizing the sovereignty of the people as the source of all authority in law — in comparison to Republican legislators restricting the rights of parents to look after their children in the way that they see fit by banning gender-affirming health care and more. Even Iowa Republicans — like Rep. Chad Ingels, R-Randalia, and Rep. Megan Jones, R-Sioux Rapids — have shown intraparty dissent against these anti-trans bills, arguing that banning all gender-affirming health care is too broad a category and prevents Iowa parents from choosing the best path for their children or that procedures should only be prohibited when parental consent is lacking.

“What would I tell parents who are watching their government actively oppose their family and actively oppose the ability for them to take care of their kids is to make sure their elected officials understand without any ambiguity that these kids are people and are not symbols of some social agenda by national political groups,” said McRoberts. “We may not be able to change the law, we may not be able to fix it, but we can make them look the family in the eye. They don’t get to play dumb.”

So, I ask Iowans: Do you want to be known as a state with a diverse and rich culture, revered for its trailblazing efforts — or a state that wants to shun and threaten the very lives of anyone who threatens the small, narrow-minded view of white, heteronormative culture?

Nichole Shaw is a Gazette editorial fellow. Comments: nichole.shaw@thegazette.com

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