Bill transgender betrays Iowa values

Iowa has been my home since 1998. When my family moved to the south, I chose to stay because I believed in Iowa’s values: justice, community and opportunity. I built my life here, I built my family here. But now, Iowa legislators have betrayed these values ​​by approving legislation that eliminates transgender Iowans from their civil rights.

This bill is not only cruelly, historically it is not preceded. Never before a state eliminated a protected class from its civil rights code. It establishes a dangerous precedent, indicating that the rights of marginalized people can be stripped by whimping those in power.

Legislators affirm that this bill is about protecting women and children, but that argument is the same used to justify prohibitions about interracial marriage and segregation. It is fearful, simple and simple. The reality is that transgender people have existed throughout history. We are his neighbors, his colleagues, his family members. This bill will not erase us, but will make life in Iowa more dangerous to us.

Beyond its legal implications, this legislation is a moral failure. Jesus ordered us to love our neighbors as ourselves, not that we arm the religion against the marginalized. The Bible itself presents God beyond the rigid binary gender, described as father and mother, a warrior and a seamstress, creator and spirit. If the divine is not limited by human notions of gender, why do legislators feel the right to erase the transgender people of public life?

Shaking transgender Iowans of civil rights protections will not make the State safer, but it will make it more empty. My Transgender Friends and Companions are making plans to leave. Many young professionals are looking beyond the borders of Iowa, who are not willing to build their future in a state that refuses to recognize their dignity. Companies that value diversity will doubt in investing in an openly hostile state to their own people. The long -term consequences will be devastating, not only for transgender Iowans, but for the economy, the workforce and the reputation of the State itself.

Some legislators claim that they are acting in defense of “freedom.” But what freedom remains when the government actively sanctions discrimination? Others invoke religion, but ignore their central teachings of love, justice and compassion. And for those who rule out this as a mere policy, I ask: How can my right to exist in public life to be in debate?

I refuse to let my existence be erased. Transgender people have always been here, and we will always be. Iowa has an option: will it be remembered as the first state to eliminate rights, or as a place that values ​​justice about fear?

The story will remember. I urge those with conscience to be on the right side.

Mx. Chris Morse lives in Des Moines.