This past Tuesday, February 25th, the organization “Iowa Safe Schools” held an event at the Iowa Historical Society and the state capital building to bring attention to issues facing Queer Students and People in Iowa. With 108 people attending this event, it was the largest turnout they have ever had. This year they focused on advocating against legislation being introduced in Iowa to strip trans representation from Iowa civil rights laws.
The event was educating people on two bills being introduced this week, the Civil Rights Erasure Act (which codified “separate accommodations are not inherently unequal) and the Legalized Deadnaming Bills. The first seeks to remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, and the second would prohibit school districts from addressing the deadnaming of students, teachers, or employees by other students, teachers, or employees.
Of the 108 people in attendance, we were fortunate to speak to two groups representing their respective schools—the GSA from Clinton High School and the “PROUD” organization from the University of Northern Iowa. We also spoke to the Director of External Affairs for the Iowa Safe Schools Association, Damian J. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson provided more info into what Iowa Safe Schools is and what it has accomplished.
“The mission of Iowa Safe Schools is to create safe and supportive learning environments and communities for students across the state of Iowa, but especially LGBTQ students,” said Thompson, We were founded in 2002 by members of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission and since then we’ve really grown to be a holistic organization serving students in all 99 counties who are victimized by bullying, harassment or discrimination in schools and their communities.”
“In 2007, we were able to pass the Iowa Safe Schools Act, which requires school districts across the state to have an inclusive and comprehensive anti-bullying policy in place. And when I say inclusive, that means inclusive of gender identity, sexual orientation, as well as other protected characteristics.” Thompson said. “Also in 2007, we were able to amend the Iowa Civil Rights Act to add gender identity and sexual orientation, so LGBTQ folks can’t be discriminated against in areas of credit, employment, housing, public accommodation, education, et cetera.”
The Civil Rights Erasure Act was passed by Kim Reynold on Thursday, February 27th after being passed in both the Senate and the House.
The GSA, Gay-Straight Alliance, we interviewed from Clinton Iowa High School only formed this year, but they have been working hard to make a change.
“I’m Audrey. I’m the president and founder of Clinton High School’s GSA, Pride Club. So we were founded in this year and we’ve just been trying to figure things out as we go for the most part, but I’d say we’ve been pretty successful, like we’ve been trying to figure out how to like spread awareness about LGBTQ community, stuff like that.”
The GSA members in attendance were Audrey, the president, Erin, the secretary, Jaden, the treasurer, Anaya, the vice president, and Rin Ciner, the club advisor. They later attended a subcommittee meeting on the bills mentioned above, alongside the large group of protestors made of the community and people brought there by Iowa Safe Schools.
The PROUD Organization from UNI also gave their mission statement and some projects they have achieved.
“My name is Ali. I’m the president of UNI proud. We are the University of Northern Iowa’s LGBTQ social and political, student organization on campus. We’re involved in a lot of, activist and advocacy efforts, things like this (Iowa Safe Schools). We also provide physical safe spaces for um students of all backgrounds to exist, kind of find community, and find somewhere they can exist free of judgment.”
“The big thing that we’re known for is our draganza show every April. um, so it is a fundraiser show that we do. We have a mix of volunteer, like student performers, and then we also contract a couple of professional drag performers from throughout the Midwest to come up to Cedar Falls and perform, and we’ll collect tips as donations to donate to a nonprofit that we’ve selected. so last year, we donated 2000 um and one to the Cedar Valley LGBTQ coalition, so they were able to use that funding to increase their programming so that way, um people in the community who weren’t necessarily affiliated with the university still had like a local organization, they could kind of rely on.”
