Iowa became the first state to remove gender identity from its civil rights code, leaving transgender and nonbinary residents unprotected from discrimination in various areas of life. The new law defines female and male based on reproductive organs at birth and prohibits changes to birth certificate sex designations.
Gov. Kim Reynolds remarked that the previous civil rights code “blurred the biological line between the sexes” when signing the law.
About half of U.S. states still protect gender identity against discrimination, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
