On February 1, Iowa governor Kim Reynolds submitted House Study Bill 649.
It proposes that, anywhere in Iowa law you see the word "sex," it will refer to assigned sex at birth.
How are you going to know someone else's assigned sex at birth? Ah, they have a plan for that.
Your birth certificate — and, later, your driver's license — list your sex.
The proposal is that these identity documents may be changed only if you have a letter from a "doctor and surgeon" confirming that you've had a relevant surgery. If you have, then your birth certificate and driver's license are updated to show....BOTH SEXES.
Here's how that will 'work' (hint: it won't work for trans people)
The birth certificate "shall include a designation of the sex of the person, as male or female, both at the time of birth and at the time the new certificate of birth is established." That appears to mean that your birth certificate would indicate specifically whether you're a transgender man or a transgender woman. The same would apply to the license.
Iowa governor Kim Reynolds wants to out all trans and intersex people by giving us ID cards that explicitly indicate that we've had surgery on our genitals or else she's happy to leave us with ID cards that show our sex assigned at birth. The trans or intersex person would not have a choice in this. It would not matter what gender we live in or appear to be.
The options are: Be your sex assigned at birth, or, if you absolutely insist and if you get surgery, be openly trans. What you could never be (under Iowa law) is the other sex. There would be no way to do it legally (if this bill passes).
The stakes, for those who don't already know: If we own a car, police know when a car owned by a trans person is driving by. If we rent an apartment, enroll in a college, or get a job and have to show ID, our landlord, school administration, or employer knows that we're trans. If we marry or divorce, our transness might be reflected on those documents too.
What if we need to get a U.S. passport? What gender marker will be on our passport, and what else will the federal government (secretly) do with this information that we're trans?
What if we're not U.S. citizens and we need to use an Iowa birth certificate to get a passport in another country?
Of course they know it's harmful
The cruelty is the point. [That link goes to my reflections on Adam Serwer's book by that title. It's paywalled on Medium.]
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If this passes, Reed says, Iowa would become "the third state to target the driver's licenses of transgender adults, and the first state that would require both markers on a single ID card for those who seek to update their licenses."
Iowa Governor's Bill Would Mandate Trans People Have Both Gender Markers On Licenses
House Study Bill 649, introduced by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, would ban drivers license gender marker changes unless a trans person had surgery. In those cases, trans people must list both genders.
Erin Reed, Erin In The Morning, February 1, 2024
"Nora Anderson has left a lot of places. When administrators forgot to unlock the only unisex bathroom at her high school in Iowa City, Iowa, the transgender 15-year-old (who felt uncomfortable using the girls’ restroom) got picked up by her parents so she could use one at home or a nearby grocery store. After a classmate suggested starting an “anti-trans club,” she transferred out of the public school system and switched to homeschooling. Nora couldn’t even get a German pastry at the farmers market without a blonde middle-aged woman shouting, “Look! There’s a boy in a dress!” She left without buying anything. Then, in 2022, the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, aired a campaign ad saying, “We still know right from wrong, boys from girls.” Nora and her family no longer felt welcome—or safe—in their home state. So they packed up and moved to Portland, Oregon. “It’s pretty sad having to leave all the time,” Nora says with a sigh."
— The Gender Refugees: When the Andersons fled Iowa City in 2022, they joined a growing group of American families escaping states that have become hostile for transgender communities. Where do they go from here? jess Swanson, Elle Magazine, March 12, 2024
And more
Please also see the 300 articles I've written about transphobia.
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