Iowa’s Republican Governor just signed a new law banning protections for trans people at the city and county level.

Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 579 earlier this week, the Des Moines Register reports. The bill, passed by Iowa’s House of Delegates on March 5 in a party-line vote, prevents local governments throughout the state from adding categories of civil rights violations that are not included in the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

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“A city or local government shall not enact any ordinance or other law which is broader or has different categories of unfair or discriminatory practices than those provided,” in the state civil rights code, the bill states.

As the Register notes, the law also bans nearly 20 local governments with existing trans protections in their civil rights laws from enforcing them.

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Reynolds told reporters Wednesday that signing the bill “was the right thing to do.”

“We just believe that the locals should follow the state laws, especially when it comes to civil rights, otherwise we have a mismatch of rights out there,” she said, according to the Register.

Last year, Reynolds signed a law repealing civil rights protections for transgender people from the state’s civil rights law, making Iowa the first state in the U.S. to repeal anti-discrimination protections for a previously protected class of people.

State Republican lawmakers made it clear that the point of the 2025 repeal was to ensure that Iowa’s anti-trans bathroom and sports bans and a law banning gender-affirming care for minors could survive potential court challenges, according to the Register.

“It does have an impact on protecting girls’ sports and making sure that we’re protecting girls in safe spaces, in restrooms and in lockers,” Reynolds said Wednesday of Senate File 579. “And so that was at jeopardy if we have a hodgepodge of mixed laws within our state.”

LGBTQ+ rights group One Iowa’s executive director, Max Mowitz, blasted Reynolds’ decision to ban trans protections at the local level, noting that the bill is one of only two pieces of legislation the governor has signed this year.

“Republicans acted as quickly as possible to remove any semblance of rights remaining for transgender Iowans, and took local civil rights commissions down with them,” Mowitz said in a statement, according to the Register.

“With all the issues facing Iowans at this moment, from cancer rates to water quality, Iowa Republicans can’t seem to agree on anything other than taking away civil rights,” he said. “Gov. Kim Reynolds’ legacy will be having removed more civil rights protections from her constituents than any other governor in history.”

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