DES MOINES, Iowa — Nonprofit One Iowa hosted the annual LGBTQ Day at the statehouse on Monday.
The organization hosted Iowans for a lunch and then a march to the State Capitol building for a rally and to talk with lawmakers. The day comes after Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds introduced a bill last week that would define a person’s gender as their sex at birth, and codify it into Iowa law.
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Speakers at the event included state and city lawmakers, calling to action the several dozen people who were in the statehouse on Monday.
“But it’s worth dissecting, HSB 649, which seeks to so narrowly define sex, functionally erase LGBTQ people from Civil Rights protections and reinvent separate but equal. HSB 649 is what happens when you put book burners in charge of writing policy,” said Aime Wichtendahl, a member of the Hiawatha City Council.
After the speeches, those in attendance broke out in small groups to go discuss their concerns with the proposed policy with lawmakers.