After contentious hearings and demonstrations at the Iowa Capitol, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a law protecting girls’ and women’s rights.
The new law, Senate File 418, defines “sex” in Iowa statutes as “the state of being either male or female as observed or clinically verified at birth.” The measure also removes “gender identity” from nondiscrimination laws.
As legislators were considering the bill, transgender-identified protestors and their allies flooded the state Capitol, reported the Des Moines Register. “More than 2,000 LGBTQ rights supporters chanted, shouted and jeered in protest as House and Senate lawmakers passed the bill, sending it to Reynolds’ desk.”
The Gazette, a news outlet in Cedar Rapids, posted videos and photos from the protests. Protestors carried signs with the usual transgender slogans, such as “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” and “I’d rather have a TRANS daughter than a DEAD daughter.”
Here you can see some opponents of the bill singing, “We are singing, singing for our lives.”
The bill, of course, doesn’t take the lives or civil rights of transgender-identified people. Gender confused Iowans have all the same rights as other Iowans.
Adding spurious internal or socio-political identities, like “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI), to non-discrimination laws harms those who disagree with these sexual ideologies. Such legislation is based on the idea that a person’s identity is defined by sexual attractions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
As we’ve previously written in the Daily Citizen, SOGI laws, policies and regulations affect freedom of speech, parental rights, religious freedom, girls sports and the basic privacy, safety and dignity of women and men.
Something is not a “civil right” if it threatens or strips others of their civil rights, which is what SOGI nondiscrimination laws do.
The Iowa House passed the measure with a vote of 60-36, while the Senate passed the bill with a vote of 33-15.
In a video and press statement about SF 418, Reynolds said, “Today, I am signing into law a bill that safeguards the rights of women and girls.”
“It is common sense to acknowledge the obvious biological differences between men and women. In fact, it is necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls.”
The protections were necessary, the governor said, because the state’s “Civil Rights Code blurred the biological line between the sexes” and “forced Iowa taxpayers to pay for gender reassignment surgeries.”
The bill protects women in sex-segregated spaces and activities, the governor explained, saying:
It is why we have men and women’s bathrooms, but not men and women’s conference rooms; girls’ and boys’ sports, but not girls’ math and boys’ math; separate men and women’s prisons, but not different laws for men and women. It is about the biological differences, and that is all.
It is also why Iowa has enacted laws protecting girls’ sports for girls and women’s private spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms.
She added that all people deserve “respect and dignity, concluding her statement by saying, “What this bill does accomplish is to strengthen protections for women and girls, and I believe that is the right thing to do.”
In addition to defining “sex,” here are some of the other definitions from SF 418 which will be used in state statutes:
Female – means an individual who has, had, will have through the course of normal development, or would have but for a developmental anomaly, genetic anomaly, or accident, a reproductive system that at some point produces ova.
Male – means an individual who has, had, will have through the course of normal development, or would have but for a developmental anomaly, genetic anomaly, or accident, a reproductive system that at some point produces sperm.
“Woman” or “girl” refers to a female.
“Man” or “boy” refers to a male.
“Gender,” when used alone in reference to males, females, or the natural differences between males and females shall be considered a synonym for sex and shall not be considered a synonym or shorthand expression for gender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.
The term “equal” does not mean “same” or “identical.”
The bill makes allowances for those with “a medically verifiable diagnosis of disorder or difference of sex development.” It allows for sex-segregated spaces in locker rooms, restrooms, prisons and shelters, and it forbids schools from promoting or instructing kindergarten through sixth grade students about sexual orientation or gender theory.
Related Articles and Resources:
Are Sex and Gender Different Things?
Department of Education Launches Multiple Investigations Into Title IX Violations
Department of Education Office for Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter
Kansas Legislature Enacts ‘Help Not Harm’ Legislation, Overriding Governor’s Veto
Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces
What Are Male and Female in God’s Story?
Why a Trans Woman is a Not a Woman
Image from Shutterstock.
The post Iowa Governor Signs Bill ‘That Safeguards the Rights of Women and Girls’ appeared first on Daily Citizen.
Daily Citizen