Iowa on Tuesday put in place a state law that bars cities and counties from adopting nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity that extend beyond the categories set in Iowa code, the Associated Press reported. The law took effect immediately after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed it, building on last year’s rollback of the state’s civil rights code. The measure is intended to limit how local governments write and enforce their own gender-identity-related protections.
The preemption law, as described by Republicans who control Iowa’s House and Senate, aims to prevent what they say would be an unworkable patchwork of local rules. Republican state Rep. Steve Holt said in remarks reported by AP that there could be “hundreds of situations where we have conflicts with local ordinances,” arguing that “a patchwork of different civil rights ordinances would be extremely difficult for businesses and schools to navigate.”
Supporters said the new state approach provides clarity about which classes are protected under Iowa law, while Democrats objected. Reynolds said Wednesday that the earlier gender-identity-related nondiscrimination protections from various communities still posed “a hodgepodge” problem that could conflict with state policies, and she described the goal as aligning local and state civil rights rules.
The shift affects communities that already had their own gender identity protections and plans that were added more recently. AP reported that many cities across Iowa have included gender identity protections in local code, including Des Moines and Iowa City, and that Ames enacted an ordinance last month establishing gender identity protections.
Laura Bergus, an Iowa City council member and lawyer, said the city had placed gender-identity discrimination protections in local law for about 30 years. After last year’s state changes, she said the city passed a resolution reinforcing “the fact that we had that authority” and making sure residents understood that discrimination on the basis of gender identity remained prohibited in Iowa City. Bergus told AP that the new state law is “extreme overreach” because it prevents local governments from responding to the needs of their communities, and she said Iowa City is considering legal action.
Beyond Iowa, AP cited laws in Arkansas and Tennessee that prohibit local nondiscrimination ordinances broader than state law, based on researchers at Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank. It also said sexual orientation and gender identity were not originally included in Iowa’s 1965 Civil Rights Act, but were added in 2007 after a then-Democratic-controlled Legislature updated the measure with support from about a dozen Republicans.
Iowa’s civil rights law currently protects against discrimination based on categories including race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin and disability status, according to the AP report. In Reynolds’s account, however, local protections and state policies related to transgender students’ access to spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms—and participation in sports teams—could not coexist, and Reynolds argued that local differences created mismatch risks.
The legal impact also extends to state procedures for complaints and documentation requests. AP reported that people have until April 27 to file a civil rights complaint with the Iowa Office of Civil Rights on the basis of gender identity for incidents that occurred before the civil rights code rollback took effect on July 1, 2025. AP said that only one complaint had been accepted for investigation since then, while 46 complaints on the basis of gender identity were accepted for investigation during the prior 12 months, based on data provided by the Office of Civil Rights as of Feb. 13.
AP also said the rollback removed the ability for Iowans to request changes to the sex designation on their birth certificates. The report cited state health department data provided to AP showing that, in 2025 from January through June, 208 birth certificate requests involved sex designation changes, which AP said was higher than 2024’s total of 135 requests for the entire year. It added that the state no longer tracks how many birth certificate changes it receives but continues to receive them, and that all requests are rejected.
In the immediate aftermath of the new preemption law’s start, local officials such as those in Iowa City are weighing their options on whether the change will be challenged in court, while state lawmakers argue that the law will bring consistency by limiting the protected categories to those specified in Iowa code.