Republicans Signal Anti-Trans Intent
Leading Off: The Iowa and New Hampshire Houses pass some of the most aggressive anti-trans policies yet seen in the US.
by Assigned Media
One year ago, the Iowa state legislature passed a bill removing trans people as a protected class from state level anti-discrimination policies, a bill which marked the first time in US history that a class has had its protected status revoked. Now, the state has expanded its undoing of trans rights with the House voting in favor of a bill that would restrict the adoption of anti-discrimination policies for trans people by counties and cities as well.
Not only would this new bill prevent the adoption of future protections, it also seeks to undo existing protections in numerous municipalities across the state, which, The Advocate reports, accounts for around a third of the state’s population. These municipal protections were passed largely as a response to the state’s revocation of protection for trans people last year.
Another provision of this bill would do away with the requirement for cities with over 29,000 residents to maintain a civil rights commission. This bill has yet to pass the state Senate and will also need approval of the governor before official adoption into law.
New Hampshire is also advancing a novel restriction of trans rights, with the state House voting in favor of a bathroom ban. The New Hampshire legislature has attempted three other times in the last three years to pass a ban, with the most recent attempt occurring just a month ago.
This bill takes things a step further than the previous attempts, as well as further than most other versions of this type of policy across the US, by having the ban extend to private businesses as well as state buildings. The bill seeks to criminalize violations of the ban by defining instances of a trans person entering a bathroom not matching their gender assigned at birth as ‘willful trespass’.
While previous bills like this have passed the state Senate, none have been so extreme as this one, so it is yet to be seen whether this will pass. And, if it does, New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte has already vetoed previous bathroom bans, calling them “overly broad and impractical to enforce.”
While the chances of passage are, ultimately, unlikely, this escalated version of a familiar type of bill serves as a signifier of the Right’s goals for legislation surrounding trans people.
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