Over the past month, immense amounts of legislation have been introduced targeting Iowa’s youth. A multitude of bills targeting the young LGBTQ+ population and the material being taught in schools K-12 have been passed, and the central theme seems to be grabbing Iowa by the collar and dragging us backward. While our country is touted as “the land of the free”, we are smothering self-expression, world expansion and basic human rights. 

On Wednesday, March 22, Senate File 482 was signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds, and on the 23, it went into effect. Students must use the bathroom and locker room that corresponds with the gender they were assigned at birth, regardless if the student identifies with that gender. A student can be provided with special, one-stall facilities, but only with parental permission. The reason Reynolds cites for signing this bill into law is to protect students, especially girls, from sexual assault by people who say they are female for the sole purpose of entering women’s restrooms. However, transgender youth is actually more at risk of sexual assault by being forced to use facilities they don’t identify with. In the LGBTQ Teen Study, an anonymous web survey from 2019, 25.9% of respondents reported being a victim of sexual assault in the past 12 months. It is important to note that transgender and nonbinary kids who were subject to bathroom and locker room restrictions reported an even higher rate of 36%. By signing this bill into law, Kim Reynolds and every other lawmaker upholding her decision are directly putting LGBTQ+ youth at risk under the guise of protecting female students. Sexual assault is an incredibly serious issue in this state and in this country, and lawmakers should be working to protect every child from being sexually assaulted, instead of picking and choosing who gets protection. 

Students at West High are in uproar over the legislation that has been passed. Students who are being affected by these laws and the students that support them have been protesting in their own ways in the past weeks. Social media posts have been made and students have even gone as far as to take down the gendered signs outside all the bathrooms in the school. While West High is not the organization behind this legislation, the school is required by law to follow it or face consequences. Taking frustration, anger and fear out on the building itself might not be the best solution, but when situations feel out of control, a first response is to try and gain some of that control back. Their school environment, the environment that is supposed to welcome them and support them, has been turned against them. 

Another bill that has been passed by our Governor, Senate File 582, prohibits gender-affirming care for minors in the state of Iowa. Some Democrats, however, asked the question of whether or not the bill violates the chapter of the Iowa Code on civil rights. The bill states that treatment such as puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy and surgeries will not be banned for children that are not transgender. They argue that because the law is targeting a group of people instead of everyone, it is discrimination. “It feels like they’re taking away part of my humanity. Like they’re classifying me as not deserving of the same medical opportunities. It’s dehumanizing.” said Louis Brown ’25, a transgender student at West High.