A trans teen spent his 18th birthday at the Iowa State Capitol pleading with lawmakers not to take away his rights.

In a tearful address, Kayde Martin shared, “It deeply troubles me that after 18 years of living here with my family, attending school, working, this is the focus of our state.”

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Martin was speaking against a law to repeal civil rights protections for transgender people, which ultimately passed and has made Iowa the first state to repeal anti-discrimination protections for a previously protected class of people.

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“Good morning, my name is Kayde Martin, and today I speak not just for myself, but for many other transgender youths in Iowa,” he opened. “I was born on February 27, 2007. Today is my 18th birthday. I stand before you fighting for the same basic civil rights that every Iowan deserves by humanely asking you to vote against this bill.”

“I plan on attending the University of Northern Iowa in the fall, and I hope to live independently and without fear of discrimination simply because of who I am. I have heard some people talk about women’s rights… Why do women’s rights only seem to be defended when it is used to be against the transgender community? Where’s the same outcry when it comes to women’s choices in their own bodily autonomy?”

Martin then spoke about being raised Christian and said faith teaches respect and love for all people no matter their identity.

“A good Christian knows that only the lord is one to judge,” he said. “Nobody knows the heavenly father’s plan.”

He added: “I want to be able to be the person I was meant to be, and as the person that God knows me to be. Please, don’t take my rights away simply because you disagree with who I am. Being trans is not a choice, it is a reality that you come to when you learn to understand yourself and love yourself, and I hope for those who refuse to try to understand that we can agree to disagree like civil people instead of targeting each other… and avoid becoming more divided as a state.”

Thousands protested the bill along with Martin as Republicans claimed it would protect women and children from trans women in gendered spaces and sports teams. Studies have shown that cis men and a lack of athletic funding harm women much more than trans women do. Nevertheless, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature fast-tracked the bill, largely supporting it along party lines.

When signing the bill, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said, “It is common sense to acknowledge the obvious biological differences between men and women. But unfortunately, these commonsense protections were at risk because… the Civil Rights Code blurred the biological line between the sexes.”

The bill will also allow discrimination against trans and gender-nonconforming people in housing, employment, and credit. Democratic Senate opponents of the bill tried adding amendments to maintain these specific protections, but Republican senators widely rejected them. Democrats said the rejections proved that the Republican bill isn’t really about protecting women and children.

State Rep. Aime Wichtendahl (D), the state’s only trans legislator, said the purpose of Iowa’s bill is to “erase us from public life and to stigmatize our existence, to make our existence illegal, to force us back into the closet,” adding, “The authors of these bills wish us every harm.”

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