Iowa became the first state to remove gender identity from its civil rights code under a law that took effect Tuesday, meaning transgender and nonbinary residents are no longer protected from discrimination in their job, housing and other aspects of life.
The law also explicitly defines female and male based on reproductive organs at birth and removes the ability for people to change the sex designation on their birth certificate.
An unprecedented take-back of legal rights after nearly two decades in Iowa code leaves transgender, nonbinary and potentially even intersex Iowans more vulnerable now than they were before . It's a governing doctrine now widely adopted by President Donald Trump and Republican-led states despite the mainstream medical view that sex and gender are better understood as a spectrum than as an either-or definition.
When Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Iowa's new law, she said the state's previous civil rights code "blurred the biological line between the sexes."
"It's common sense to acknowledge the obvious biological differences between men and women. In fact, it's necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls," she said in a video statement.