Republicans on a Senate committee advanced a bill Wednesday removing gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, setting it up for a likely vote by the full Iowa Senate Thursday.
The bill would remove transgender Iowans from the state law that provides anti-discrimination protections in housing, employment, education, credit practices and public accommodations.
Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, says the majority of states don’t have specific gender identity protections, and that Iowa needs to align its civil rights law with its other laws that keep transgender people out of women’s sports and school bathrooms.
“It is responsible, mature and statesmanlike — not political, statesmanlike — to actually enforce these protections when it is obvious that the removal of those words has no detrimental effect, and we have the laboratory of the states, the majority of the states, to look upon.”
Democrats say Iowa shouldn’t be going backwards and taking civil rights away from a whole group of people. The House is also expected to vote on the bill Thursday, and it could become law by the end of this week.