Latest silent civil rights protest ends in heated debate

WASHINGTON — An assembly of protesters holding signs packed into the Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting room Tuesday morning, where they offered a petition with 376 signatures, asking the board to pass a civil rights ordinance that would, “restore legal protection to the transgender community.”

The sit-in on July 1 marked the first day that a new state law took effect, removing the term “gender identity” from the list of protected classes in Iowa’s civil rights code, a phrase that previously protected transgender Iowans whose socially expressed gender doesn’t match their biological sex.

The larger-than-usual crowd followed the same tactics protesters have used at other meetings in recent weeks, carrying signs and raising their voices during the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance — on the words “liberty and justice for all” — but otherwise saying little during the county’s weekly decision-making process.

That relative quiet ended at the meeting’s close, however, as some of the assembly vocalized their dissent against the supervisors and county attorney. A heated discussion ensued, as protest organizer JJ Johnson said dissenters may soon begin organizing election campaigns against the sitting board members.

“As far as I’m concerned, they’ve lost any support I could possibly give them, and I think it’s time to convince our county of the same,” said Johnson, a Richmond resident who’s led much of the push for a civil rights ordinance in the last several months. “There are people who will be discriminated against in the future of our county, they’re going to need some protections.”

The county, meanwhile, seems increasingly unlikely to consider an ordinance proposed in the petition.

“This ordinance is not going to happen in this county,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Young, in a candid conversation with Johnson after the meeting. “There’s not enough members who are willing to pass it … when I talk to individuals, there’s at least three that are not going to pass it.”

County attorney hesitant about legality of local civil rights code

County Attorney Nathan Repp, in conversations with The Union and a handful of protesters after the meeting, said he was hesitant to put a civil rights ordinance on the books for fear of state backlash.

“The state was very clear … it has been made known that passing such an ordinance would be considered in conflict with state law,” he said, citing “general conversations” with other, unspecified officials. “I don’t think the issue is ideological, it’s a preemption issue.”

He later continued, “There’s an issue with using a county ordinance to try and upend state law, there’s a supremacy clause. I don’t know that I disagree, I think that the state would disagree. And I don’t think anyone supports discrimination … but my personal beliefs don’t matter, they’re not necessarily relevant when it comes to the legal issue of preemption.”

Repp said he worried a lawsuit from state officials would represent a major taxpayer cost, if Washington County passes a gender-identity inclusive civil rights code.

“The potential litigation that would arise from passing such an ordinance would be extremely time-consuming and expensive, it’s not free,” he said. “I’m not saying money should be the ultimate determinate of whether it’s passed, I am saying it’s not free. Putting a signature on the paper would be free, the follow-up would certainly not be.”

Protesters were frustrated with that stance.

Some dissenters argued it was a misinterpretation of state law. Protester Lynette Iles said Repp’s rationale “showed us, today, that he doesn’t actually seem to know law.”

  Buy Photo

Others claimed the argument offered elected officials an excuse to avoid helping transgender people, who some Republicans claim are not “real“ women or men, since their gender doesn’t match the sex of their reproductive organs at birth.

Iowa Code Chapter 216 — the state’s civil rights law — states that nothing in its language prohibits local governments from, “enacting any ordinance or other law which prohibits broader or different categories of unfair or discriminatory practices.”

Johnson County, Washington County’s neighbor to the north, has already passed a civil rights code of its own. And in Washington County, JJ Johnson said he believed a lawsuit over expanded rights would be a reasonable use of taxpayer dollars.

“Let’s get sued,” he said. “If doing what’s right is illegal, do what’s right, and face the consequences. We’ll back you up. You’d have the support of the state, you would have the support of the entire nation. Do you know how quickly we could get this running out in the public media sphere?”

Others have urged the supervisors to pursue local civil rights protections as an exercise in local control.

Washington County’s all-Republican board of supervisors has long balked at state mandates controlling county- and city-level 911 funds, Mental Health and Disability services, and property taxes.

By extension, some protesters argued the board should have the same issue with state officials discouraging local civil rights protections.

“One of the biggest things in Republican government is local control, it used to be,” said one woman to the supervisors after Tuesday morning’s meeting. “This is another way we can say, ‘No, state, we have local control, and we believe ”liberty and justice for all“ means all.’”

State law took effect July 1

In March, Iowa became the first state in the nation to remove “gender identity” as a protected class from its civil rights code, with Gov. Kim Reynolds’ signature to Senate File 418, despite massive protests and mostly Democratic pushback in the Republican-controlled legislature.

Lawmakers argued the change was necessary to prevent conflicts with other protections based on sex. Many Republican state officials have raised concerns about men using women’s locker rooms under the false pretense of being transgender, for example.

“The clearest thing the legislature felt needed to be resolved is the contest between gender identity and sex, as it exists under protected classes,” said Republican State Rep. Jeff Shipley at a Washington County Supervisors meeting last month. “Unless we have laws that are very easy to understand and very easy to apply, it’s going to create a lot of unnecessary conflict, and we’ve had lots of legal cases.”

  Buy Photo

Locally, some elected officials say they’re unwilling to back civil rights protections that might require Iowans to follow the name and pronoun preferences of people who are transgender.

“I’m pretty set in my conservative ways, and what they’re suggesting does not align with my belief system,” Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. has previously said about the requested ordinance. “I get the human rights part, and I get that people should not be discriminated against, but I also believe … when you start trying to force other people to go along with something that’s not reality, I don’t think that government should force people to do that.”

Opponents, meanwhile, have argued that the removal of protections will effectively legalize discrimination against transgender Iowans, especially at small businesses which are exempt from parts of federal civil rights law if they have under 15 employees.

“Trans people are here, we are your neighbors, your co-workers, we are members of your church,” said Sean McConnell, a trans man from Washington at a supervisor meeting in early June. “Everyone deserves to know they are safe and a valued member of their community. I am not asking for special rights, I am just asking that I won’t be fired or evicted just because I am transgender.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com