Rep. Dean Fisher (R-Montour).

This was Week 7 of the session. We are quickly coming up on the funnel date when individually filed policy bills must be through committee to remain eligible for debate.

Thursday, the Iowa House and Senate passed Senate File 418, a return to common sense by removing “gender identity” as a protected class in the Iowa civil rights code. This is a bill that I have worked to get passed since 2020, I am thrilled to see it finally happen.

The bill also returns Iowa code to biological truth by using scientific definitions for male, female, and sex and by requiring birth certificates designate sex at birth and cannot be changed. This bill does not take basic rights away from transgender individuals. Having gender identity in the code actually results in the infringement of many other Iowans’ rights, particularly women. In the name of gender identity, women have lost their right to privacy in intimate spaces, and their right to play their own sports.

The hyperbolic, hypothetical argument that taking this step will cause discrimination does not hold up to scrutiny. The federal civil rights code does not include gender identity. The most transgender-friendly president in history – President Biden – did not deem it necessary to add this protection. Neither do 28 other states have Gender Identity as a protected class, including three states with the highest population of transgender individuals: Florida, Texas and North Carolina.

This bill is necessary because every Iowan deserves to have their human rights protected, and to be treated with dignity and respect. Current Iowa Code, with gender identity as a protected class, does not accomplish this. It results in the infringement of the rights of other Iowans, and it stands in the way of Iowans being able to implement common sense policies. When a biological female walked around the Pella Aquatic Center topless, exposing her breasts, the City of Pella responded to concerned citizens by saying that after receiving legal advice, they would not take further action, citing gender identity in the civil rights code. When a female culinary student at Des Moines Community College expressed discomfort upon discovering a biological male in the women’s showers, she was told that nothing could be done because gender identity is a protected class. After outrage from its members for letting biological males posing as “trans women” use the female bathroom, the Forest City YMCA has resorted to closing all of its men’s, women’s, girls’, and boys’ locker rooms, leaving only one single use restroom available.

Over the past few years, the Iowa Legislature has taken action to pass common sense protections that Iowans have begged us for. Whether it be our bill to protect our daughters’ bathrooms and locker rooms in schools, our bill to keep biological men out of women’s sports, or our bill to prohibit gender affirming care on minors – Iowans have spoken loud and clear that they support these pieces of legislation. Unfortunately, all of these policies are at risk so long as gender identity remains a specified protected class in Iowa code.

Most Iowans believe that taxpayers should not be on the hook to pay for someone else’s so-called “gender affirming care”, also known as sex change operations. However, that is exactly what is happening as a direct result of gender identity being in our civil rights code. In a 2019 Supreme Court Ruling, the courts said that taxpayers must fund sex reassignment surgeries for Iowans on Medicaid because our civil rights law includes gender identity. That has included prison inmates. So long as gender identity remains in Iowa Code, the other common-sense policies we have passed on this issue are at risk of suffering the same fate in court. Another court decision is imminent, as a lawsuit was filed just last week in Johnson County against the school bathroom policy we passed in 2023.

The bill passed the House on a 60 to 36 vote and the Senate on a 33 to 15 vote. It’s on its way to Governor Reynolds’ desk.

As always, I look forward to seeing you at the capitol, or in the district.

Editor’s note: SF 418 was signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-Iowa) on Friday, Feb. 28. The law goes into effect July 1, 2025.

Rep. Dean Fisher’s district covers all of Poweshiek County and most of Tama County excluding the northeast corner.