State Civil Rights Law

Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds on March 11, 2026, signed a law that immediately bars cities and counties from enforcing nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity or any category not listed in the state civil-rights code, effectively nullifying local ordinances in places like Des Moines, Iowa City and Ames. The measure follows a 2025 rollback that removed gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, making Iowa the first state to strip such protections from its statewide code, and Republicans say the new preemption is needed to avoid a "patchwork" of local rules that businesses and schools would struggle to navigate. Iowa City council member and attorney Laura Bergus, whose city has had gender-identity protections for about 30 years, calls the move "extreme overreach" and says local leaders are weighing legal action as they try to reassure transgender residents. The article notes that Iowans have until April 27, 2026, to file state civil-rights complaints for gender-identity incidents that occurred before the rollback took effect July 1, 2025, and that only one such complaint has been accepted for investigation since then compared with 46 in the prior year, underscoring how protections have already withered. The rollback also removed residents’ ability to change the sex designation on their birth certificates, ending a process used 208 times in the first half of 2025 and putting Iowa alongside Arkansas and Tennessee, which already bar local LGBTQ+ ordinances broader than state law.