Iowa General Assembly
The Iowa General Assembly is the state's bicameral legislature, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It meets in two-year assemblies numbered by term, which the archive cites directly. Entries naming it record bills it passed, generally alongside Governor Kim Reynolds as the signing authority, concentrated in measures affecting transgender residents and in changes to state civil rights protections.
2026 Events (3)
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed SF473 barring the state from rejecting foster or adoptive applicants over religious objections to LGBTQ policies
On June 2, 2026, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 473, which amends state law to bar the Department of Health and Human Services from disqualifying prospective foster or adoptive parents because of sincerely held religious or moral beliefs about sexual orientation or gender identity. The law also prohibits requiring applicants to affirm, accept, or support LGBTQ-related policies that conflict with those beliefs and shields religious organizations that contract with the state from providing services against their beliefs. Advocates warned the measure could disadvantage LGBTQ youth in state care and prospective LGBTQ foster and adoptive parents.
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed HF571 letting doctors, hospitals, and insurers refuse care on conscience grounds
On May 19, 2026, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 571, the "Medical Ethics Defense Act," which lets medical practitioners, health care institutions, and health care payors decline to participate in health care services on the basis of conscience, ethical, moral, or religious objection and shields them from liability for those refusals. Reporting and opponents, including physician-legislator Rep. Austin Baeth, said the law's conscience exemption reaches gender-transition procedures and abortion and provides no standard to separate conscience from discrimination, allowing patients — including LGBTQ+ Iowans — to be denied care. The law took effect July 1, 2026.
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed SF579 barring local civil-rights protections broader than state law
On March 10, 2026, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 579, amending the Iowa Civil Rights Act so that cities and counties may no longer enact anti-discrimination protections broader than or different from state law. Because Iowa statute does not include gender identity, the law nullifies local ordinances in roughly 14 cities and Johnson County — including Iowa City and Des Moines — that had extended protections to transgender residents in housing, employment, and public accommodations. It also ends the requirement that larger cities maintain independent local civil-rights agencies, routing complaints to the state.
2025 Events (3)
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed HF1049 barring Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for transgender Iowans
On June 11, 2025, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 1049, an appropriations act funding the state departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services. A provision in the law bars Iowa's Medicaid program from reimbursing sex-reassignment surgeries or associated procedures, including hormone therapy, for the treatment of gender dysphoria, stripping existing coverage of gender-affirming care from transgender Iowans.
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed HF856 banning DEI offices across state and local government
On May 27, 2025, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 856 into law, barring state agencies, cities, counties, and other governmental entities from spending public money to establish or maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or to employ DEI officers. The law also prohibits those entities from promoting an enumerated list of concepts — including "transgender ideology," "systemic oppression," "intersectionality," and "implicit bias" — and creates a private cause of action allowing students, alumni, and public employees to sue to stop violations. Its core prohibitions took effect upon enactment.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF418, making Iowa the first state to remove gender identity from its civil rights code
On Feb. 28, 2025, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 418, removing "gender identity" as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and making Iowa the first U.S. state to strip an established protected class from its civil rights code. The law codifies binary definitions of sex tied to birth, ends transgender Iowans' ability to change the sex marker on their birth certificates, and bars instruction on "gender theory" in kindergarten through sixth grade. It took effect July 1, 2025.
2024 Events (2)
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed SF2435 banning DEI offices at public universities
On May 9, 2024, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF2435, an education-appropriations act whose Division IX bars public universities governed by the state Board of Regents from establishing or staffing diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, requiring DEI statements, or spending any funds to support such offices. The law defines prohibited DEI to reach trainings and programming designed with reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, and forbids institutions from taking official positions on contested concepts including "transgender ideology" and "gender theory." Enforcement runs through attorney-general mandamus actions, with the DEI provisions taking effect July 1, 2025.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed state Religious Freedom Restoration Act after Republican majority rejected anti-discrimination carve-out
On April 2, 2024, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 2095, a state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, into law at a private event hosted by the conservative Christian group The Family Leader. The law, enacted as Iowa Acts Chapter 1003, sets a strict-scrutiny standard for government actions that burden religious exercise; Republican legislators had rejected a Democratic amendment (S-5018) that would have barred the law from overriding civil-rights, disability, and anti-discrimination protections. The bill passed the Senate 31-16 and the House 61-33 along party lines.
2023 Events (3)
Iowa enacted SF496, barring K-6 gender-identity and sexual-orientation instruction and requiring parental notification of students' gender requests
On May 26, 2023, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 496, an omnibus education law passed by the 90th General Assembly on party lines. The law bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through sixth grade, requires school employees to notify parents when a student asks to be addressed by a different name or pronouns, and requires removal of library books depicting sex acts. Republicans framed it as expanding parental rights; LGBTQ-rights groups, educators, and Democrats said it targeted and endangered transgender and LGBTQ students.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF482, barring transgender students from school restrooms matching their gender identity
On March 22, 2023, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 482 into law, enacting Iowa Code sections 216.9A and 280.33 and requiring K-12 public and nonpublic schools to designate restrooms, locker rooms, changing areas, and similar facilities for use only by students of the same "biological sex" as listed on their birth certificate. The law bars transgender students from facilities matching their gender identity and creates a citizen-complaint mechanism routed through the Iowa Attorney General, who may sue a noncompliant school. SF482 passed the Iowa Senate 33-16 and the House 57-39 before reaching the governor's desk.
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed SF538 banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors
On March 22, 2023, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 538 into law, barring health care professionals from prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or performing gender-transition surgeries for minors. The law took effect immediately, with the treatment prohibition applying after a grandfather period and narrow exceptions only for intersex conditions or medical complications; violations are treated as unprofessional conduct subject to licensing discipline and civil suit.
2022 Events (1)
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed HF 2416, banning transgender girls and women from school sports
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed HF 2416 into law on March 3, 2022, barring transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams in the state's K-12 public and accredited nonpublic schools, community colleges, and Board of Regents universities. The Iowa House had passed the bill 55-39 on February 21 and the Senate passed a substitute 31-17 on March 2, with the law taking immediate effect as Iowa Acts Chapter 1003.