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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.

Jurisdiction
Iowa
Location
Des Moines, Iowa

Abuses documented

Actors

On Feb. 28, 2025, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 418 into law, removing "gender identity" as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and making Iowa the first U.S. state to withdraw an established protected category from its civil rights code. The gender-identity protections had been in place since 2007 and had barred discrimination in employment, housing, education, credit, and public accommodations. The bill cleared the Republican-controlled Iowa General Assembly earlier the same week, and Reynolds signed it without a public ceremony or media access.

Beyond repealing the anti-discrimination coverage, SF418 codifies binary definitions of "sex" and "gender" tied to the sex "observed or clinically verified at birth," ends transgender Iowans' ability to obtain an amended birth certificate reflecting a changed sex designation, and prohibits instruction on "gender theory" in kindergarten through sixth grade. The law took effect July 1, 2025. In the days after the bill's signing, the Iowa Civil Rights Commission reported a surge of gender-identity discrimination complaints from residents seeking to file before the protections lapsed.

Why we recorded this

Civil-rights laws exist to guarantee that people cannot be denied jobs, housing, or public services because of who they are, and once a group is protected that protection is not ordinarily taken away. Iowa removed gender identity as a protected class from its civil rights code, the first time any state has stripped an established protected class from such a law, ending anti-discrimination coverage for transgender residents in employment, housing, education, credit, and public accommodations. This archive records when government withdraws civil-rights protections from a group, because repealing an existing safeguard exposes those residents to discrimination the law had prohibited for nearly two decades.

Sources

  1. Senate File 418 — Iowa Legislature bill page — Iowa Legislature primary accessed July 12, 2026
  2. Iowa governor signs bill removing gender identity from state civil rights protections — NBC News investigative accessed July 12, 2026
  3. Gov. Kim Reynolds signs bill repealing civil rights protections for gender identity — Iowa Capital Dispatch investigative accessed July 12, 2026
  4. Few anti-discrimination protections remain for transgender Iowans — Iowa Public Radio secondary accessed July 12, 2026

See also