4 Iowa LGBTQ+ Students and the New State Laws Upending Their Lives

This year’s legislative session has been awash in fearmongering and misinformation about the LGBTQ+ community, and particularly the realities of LGBTQ+ students’ lives.

So, instead of allowing adults to define their lives, Starting Line spoke to Iowa youth who are transgender, nonbinary and otherwise on the LGBTQ+ spectrum to get their thoughts.

These are their stories, in the first of a three-part series. Read Part 2 here and read Part 3 here. (Here are some helpful definitions of LGBTQ+ terms here.)

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Dani Kallas, a student at Linn-Mar High School, came out as nonbinary to their family via group text.

In it, Dani explained how they’d been trying out different pronouns and going by Dani with friends, and they wanted their family to know and to do the same thing.

“And they all responded just by saying that they would love and support me no matter what,” Dani said.

To protect students’ privacy and safety, Starting Line agreed to only use some students’ first names.

It’s been about a year and a half since Kayde, another Linn-Mar student, came out as genderfluid and pansexual. (Genderfluid means their sense of self changes, and they use any pronouns, though they decided on they/them for this story. Pansexual means they’re attracted to people regardless of gender).

Their mom was fully accepting, but Kayde had more problems with their dad’s side of the family.

“They said that it was okay, but the way that they acted was really standoffish, and I was honestly kind of worried,” Kayde said. “It started a lot of fights.”

After a year of talking and explaining and fighting, Kayde said their relationship with their dad is in a better place now.

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Clair Ammons, a trans woman and freshman at Iowa State University, officially started hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in June 2022.

“For the first time, I was able to look in the mirror and actually like what I saw,” she said. “It was a tremendous moment of joy.”

Keiana, a senior at Cedar Falls High School, said she realized she was a lesbian during the pandemic.

She isn’t out to her parents, and she doesn’t really want to have that conversation in the first place because her family doesn’t talk about things like that. Though Keiana said she doesn’t “know how great their reactions would be,” she also said “it wouldn’t matter.”

All four are among the LGBTQ students whose lives and rights are now being restricted at the Iowa Legislature.

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‘Don’t Say Gay’ and forced de-transitioning

There have been numerous bills to ban any instruction about sexuality or gender, mimicking Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and language to require schools to out children to their parents if they express a gender identity different from the one on their birth certificate.

There are also bills to restrict the types of books students can read in their school libraries; last week, the Iowa Senate passed one of them. The House has passed similar bills but, because they’re different, the two chambers will have to come to an agreement on language.

On Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed two bills to deny trans and nonbinary students’ rights to health care and to privacy. 

One prohibits doctors from providing gender-affirming care to Iowans younger than 18. That means forced de-transitioning for those already on puberty blockers or hormones, and forced puberty for those who haven’t started using medication yet—regardless of whether their parents support their transition.

The other bill prohibits trans and nonbinary people from using the bathroom or other facilities that match their identity, despite zero problems being reported in the 15 years it’s been allowed. That means students must out themselves and/or use single-occupancy bathrooms at school, and only if parents have consented in writing.

All of these bills restrict how LGBTQ students are able to express themselves at school and how much teachers and administrators are allowed to acknowledge the LGBTQ community.

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‘Really hurtful’

Keiana said it’s obvious who the legislature is targeting.

“They’re all very specific, and specific in what I feel is really unnecessary ways,” she said. “The grades that they target and the way in which they specifically ban the mention of both gender identity and sexual orientation—those are very specific topics, and there’s definitely a reason for that.”

These four students, like many in Iowa, are strongly opposed to the anti-LGBTQ push from Republican lawmakers.

On March 1, hundreds of Iowa students from 47 schools walked out of class to protest anti-LGBTQ bills being passed in Iowa.

A few days later, on March 5, thousands showed up at a rally outside of the Capitol, and another rally March 8 in the Capitol Rotunda drew hundreds of attendees.

“It just feels a little unnecessary and, honestly, really hurtful,” Keiana said. “I just think that they would care more about their students.”

It’s partly because of laws like these that Keiana said she’s looking at out-of-state colleges and doesn’t plan to come back to Iowa.

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All four have more to say about how Iowa’s new laws are affecting their lives. Read Part 2 here and read Part 3 here. 

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Nikoel Hytrek
3/27/23

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