Andrea SannaThe United States of America is becoming increasingly Trumpian.
The state of Iowa has become the first state in the union to remove legal protections for transgender people, with Republican Governor Kim Reynolds – a known supporter of President Trump – recently signing Senate File 418, which repeals the state’s 18-year-old anti-transphobia law.
Iowa’s first civil rights law dates back to 1965, and sexual orientation and gender identity were added in 2007, prohibiting any form of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability and gender identity.
Senate File 418 removes gender identity. Not only that, but the new law also redefines “sex” to mean only “the condition of being male or female as observed or clinically verified at birth“.
A change that has alarmed the entire LGBTQIA community with strong protests to prevent a possible increase in discrimination and stigmatisation of transgender people.
Aime Wichtendahl – Democratic Representative and Iowa’s first openly transgender legislator – expressed her outrage, stating that Senate File 418 “removes every form of protection in the workplace, for our homes and our ability to access credit” and that it aims to “further erase transgender people from public life and stigmatise their existence“.
The removal of protections for transgender people in the state of Iowa is a serious step backwards for civil rights in the United States in the Trump era.
