Iowa Senator Doug Campbell says it was “common sense” to remove “gender identity” from civil rights code

The following is a legislative update from Republican State Senator Doug Campbell of Mason City, representing portions of Worth, Mitchell, Cerro Gordo and Floyd counties in Iowa Senate District 30:

We have one week to go until what legislators call ‘funnel week,’ which means Senate bills need to be out of Senate committees in order to be considered for the rest of the year. House bills also need to be out of House committees. This rule does not apply to bills in Appropriations or Ways and Means. This means our work in subcommittees has been busy while we work on moving legislation through our committees and talking with Iowans about how changes may affect them.

I served on many subcommittees for several bills that need to be completed by March 7th this week. This has been my busiest week by far. I have received over 1,000 emails on the SJR6, regarding the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, or IWILL. I am researching and learning about this issue. I am grateful for all my constituents who have given me good input and information on the topics. I have a townhall scheduled on Saturday, March 1, 2025 from 10 am to 11:30 am. Please feel free to attend with any questions or concerns.

SF360 concerning mRNA virus vaccines is only a placeholder in the process to creating legislation. If this had not been into LSA by February 14 we would have lost the opportunity to address this subject this year.

The Health and Human Services Committee passed a bill, SSB 1120, to help high-acuity youth struggling with behavioral health, substance abuse, or is otherwise in crisis in the state of Iowa. As a continuation of the Health and Human Services department’s efforts, this bill is comprised of new avenues for residential assessment, evaluation, and treatment for youth. It utilizes existing state facilities to relieve pressures on community service providers to ensure the right level of care is being provided to Iowa youth. It also eliminates red tape to help ensure a smooth transition process for Iowa’s youth into adulthood by setting them up with the services and resources they need to be successful. Another component of the bill brings needed reform to our Juvenile Court Services by standardizing policies and procedures across the state to support the safety of youth, staff, and Iowa’s communities.

Senate Study Bill 1057 also passed the Judiciary Committee this week. This was a proposal brought to us by Attorney General Brenna Bird to further protect Iowa kids. The bill is a proposed constitutional amendment to protect children and adults with disabilities from being forced to face their abusers in a courtroom. Iowa is currently the only state that does not have this protection. This would protect witnesses who are afraid to testify in a courtroom. After the trauma endured by these victims, there is no reason they should have face those that terrorized them when going through a trial. We have passed several bills aimed at protecting children in Iowa, and this is an important bill in our discussion moving forward.

Even with all the subcommittees and committees, we had some floor debate to continue moving bills through the legislative process. On Tuesday, the Iowa Senate passed SF 275, which would allow the Department of Education to develop and administer a Purple Star School initiative. This initiative would help Iowa ensure its military-connected students are supported at school. Programs like this one allow us to recognize schools that have demonstrated a commitment to supporting military-connected students and their families. The Purple Star Initiative helps create a support system for students who may be moving frequently due to their parents being in the military. With nearly all 50 states having either a Purple Star School designation or proposed legislation to create a statewide initiative, passing this bill would help make sure military-connected students and their families are taken care of here at home.

Common-sense legislation to protect Iowa women and children

One of the big topics making headlines this week was Senate File 418, which removes the phrase ‘gender identity’ from Iowa’s Civil Rights code and ensures the civil rights code protects those traits which are either unchangeable, or constitutionally-protected. By passing this bill and signing it into law, Iowa would join the majority of states that do not have ‘gender identity’ in their civil rights code, protect women and girls in private spaces reserved for them, and ensure Iowa taxpayers are not forced to pay for gender transition surgeries.

Over the past several years, Republicans have passed common-sense legislation to stop taxpayers from being forced to pay for gender transition surgeries for people on Medicaid. We also passed bills to ensure boys can’t play in girls’ sports, protected girls in locker rooms and changing rooms, and defended children from life-altering, irreversible gender surgeries. However, all this work can be easily undone if ‘gender identity,’ an idea that a person’s gender can be changed, continues to be a part of Iowa’s civil code. In fact, the courts have repeatedly overturned laws passed to keep taxpayers from paying for transition surgeries and just last week a lawsuit was filed to overturn the law keeping boys out of girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms in K-12 schools. The litigation has cited the existence of gender identity in the civil rights code as the reason those laws were, or should be, overturned by the courts.

Iowa’s Civil Rights code is meant to protect Iowans from discrimination, and it will continue to do so under the passage of this bill. All Iowans will continue to receive constitutional protections and legal protections on the basis of their individual humanity and as citizens of the United States to rights like speech, assembly, and religion. The civil rights code protects Iowans and prevents discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, physical disability, or religion. Twenty-eight other states in the country do not have gender identity as part of their civil rights code, and they have not experienced rampant discrimination issues inside their borders.

Senate File 418 is another common-sense bill to provide clarity across state and local entities, strengthen the definitions used in Iowa’s code, and ensure our state’s civil rights code is truly protecting the things about Iowans that cannot be changed. It is a necessary step to protect Iowa women and girls and ensuring they feel comfortable in those private spaces reserved for them for generations. Most importantly, this bill still provides protections for every single Iowan as they go about their daily lives.