The Law Is The Law Or Is It?

In Iowa last week a group of trans and gender queer students we thrown out of the state capitol for using the bathroom.

LGBTQ students escorted out of Iowa Capitol
Radio Iowa
By O. Kay Henderson
March 13, 2020

A group of students was escorted out of the Iowa capitol by state troopers after some transgender students refused to leave a men’s restroom and use gender-neutral restrooms instead.

Iowa Safe Schools executive director Nate Monson says the LGBTQ students were at the capitol to lobby legislators. “Students were using the restrooms that they identify with and under the Iowa Civil Rights Act for the past 13 years, that’s been a protected class,” Monson says. “The state troopers at the capitol told our students that was not the case and they physically escorted about 150 students LGBTQ youth out the door.”

Someone had called capitol police to report an adult and minor females were in a men’s restroom. A video posted online shows a trooper telling the group his concern was about “some type of possible sexual activity” in the restroom. No one was arrested, but a couple of dozen students wound up waiting on the capitol steps for nearly three hours for a school bus to pick them up.

Another news article reports that…

One Iowa: LGBTQ+ youth ejected from Capitol for using bathroom of their gender identity
KCCI
March 12, 2020

[…]
"Iowa law states that transgender Iowans have the right to access restrooms that match their gender identity," Reyes said. "For these troopers to violate these children’s rights is unconscionable. To double down and eject them from the Capitol for asserting their rights under the law is unimaginable. We call on the Iowa State Patrol to issue an apology to these students and commit to training to better inform them of the protections afforded to LGBTQ Iowans so that this never happens again. To the youth whose rights were violated today - we see you and we will not stop fighting for you to exist in spaces as your authentic self."

PinkNews reported…

All the teenagers did was use the bathroom. Yet a group of LGBT+ high school students were reduced to tears – some experiencing panic attacks – after four Iowa state troopers forcibly pushed them and forced them to leave.
[…]
Clashing with one of the troopers, Monson insists to the troops, his voice trembling, that the Iowa Civil Rights act voters public accommodations, including public restroom.

But the trooper, Underwood, squashes this: “That is not a gender-neutral restroom, it is a male restroom.”

The law is the law, right?

IOWA
Civil Rights Commission

Public Accommodations

Unfair practices - accommodations or services.

It shall be an unfair or discriminatory practice for any owner, lessee, sublessee, proprietor, manager or superintendent of any public accommodation or any agent or employee thereof:

a. To refuse or deny to any person because of race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, or disability the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services, or privileges thereof, or otherwise to discriminate against any person because of race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, or disability in the furnishing of such accommodations, advantages, facilities, services, or privileges.

b. To directly or indirectly advertise or in any other manner indicate or publicize that the patronage of persons of any particular race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion or disability is unwelcome, objectionable, not accepted or not solicited.

Iowa Code section 216.7(1).

Gee… I don’t see anything about using a gender-neutral bathroom.

I would assume that a state police officer would know the law, especially a state police officer who is working at the capitol. I know when I visit Connecticut's Capitol and Legislative Office Building the Capitol Police are very friendly and even joking sometimes.

So why were the students there? Well there was a number of pro and anti-trans bill introduced in the session and the students were there for their constitutional protected right to petition the government. The bills are;

• Remove gender identity from civil rights protections (HF2164)
• Require schools to notify parents of lessons on sexual orientation/gender identity (HF2201)
• Bar conversion therapy regarding sexual orientation/gender identity (HSB698/SF2257)
• Create study panel to evaluate inclusion of transgender in civil rights protections (HF2274)
• Bar defense due to discovery, knowledge or disclosure of victim’s sexual orientation/gender ID (HSB693)

Just as across the nation the Republicans are going all out with their anti-trans bills while the Democrats introduced pro-trans bills. In Iowa the Republicans have a state government trifecta controlling all three branches.

This is probably what stirred up the hornet’s nest in Iowa, the last Transgender Day of Remembrance the trans flag was flown over the capitol.

Iowa GOP lawmaker calls flying of trans flag above Capitol an act of the 'Rainbow Jihad'
The Hill
By Morgan Gstalter
November 25, 2019

Iowa state Rep. Skyler Wheeler (R) spoke out against the transgender flag flying over the state Capitol for Transgender Day of Remembrance, calling it an act of “political aggression” from “the Rainbow Jihad.”

Wheeler said he was not notified that the transgender flag would fly over the Capitol building in Des Moines last week, according to an interview with conservative outlet The Iowa Standard published on Saturday.

“It’s another way that the Rainbow Jihad continues to give those of us who don’t agree with them a finger in the eye and push their beliefs on us,” Wheeler said.
[…]
Wheeler’s comments were echoed by state Rep. Dean Fisher (R), who told the outlet that he plans to file legislation next session to limit which flags could be flown at the Capitol.