Dingus of the week: Iowa Republicans

Oh no, is someone speaking about aspects of your life that are simply none of their business?

This week, the Iowa House passed a bill ending civil rights protections for transgender people. And Iowa became the first state in the nation to take away civil rights for a group of people.

And my friends, if you are taking away people’s civil rights, you are not the good guys.

The bill was approved by Iowa Republicans in the name of protecting women. These same Republicans also passed a bill that stripped women of the right to reproductive choice when they voted for one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. So now, in Iowa, a 12-year-old, who cannot legally consent to sex, has to carry a pregnancy to term. But hey, at least landlords don’t have to rent to trans people, so that will keep women safe.

I find it incredible that a bunch of Republican lawmakers, many of whom have divorces under their belt for various reasons, including infidelity, are sitting around moralizing about the threat to women.

Listen, life happens, okay, but I don’t think you get to sit around and say you are the party that protects women and families when one of your leaders only pays $297 a month in child support for his three kids.

Oh, sorry, was that too low? Oh no, is someone speaking about aspects of your life that are simply none of their business? Is someone digging into your past and finding things that are deeply personal and have nothing to do with the subject at hand? Must suck. It must feel bad to have your circumstances tossed up before a crowd of judgmental ghouls.

But at least I’m not the one legislating away your rights because of it.

Given what we just saw in the state of Iowa, frankly, I am not sure I went low enough. (And yes, I am holding back.)

Transgender Iowans have been protected under civil rights legislation since 2007. During the debate about the new bill, Iowa’s only trans legislator, Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, spoke about growing up in rural Iowa. She began to transition in 2006 and was evicted from her home after transitioning.

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Her speech earned her a standing ovation. But the bill still passed. It’s worth pointing out that this bill has been introduced before but never made it into law because in the past, many Iowa business leaders spoke out against this bill. As the Des Moines Register reported:

And, last year, the Iowa Business Council and the Greater Des Moines Partnership registered against another bill that would have removed gender identity as a protected class. Those previous bills all failed.

Yet, none of the groups have signaled their opposition to this year's bills, House File 583 and Senate File 418, either through lobbyist registrations or public statements.

Principal Insurance was also silent on the matter and so was Kum & Go. Kum & Go had previously spoken out against bills targeting trans Iowans. But the company is now owned by Utah-based Maverik gas stations. It would be a real shame if those business leaders had to face one iota of the discrimination that trans Iowans experience.

It’s worth noting the silence in the face of such extreme bigotry. And it’s tempting to write this off as “just Iowa.” But Iowa is an incubator for Republican policies. And the number of “centrist” pundits who were willing to throw trans people under the bus after the election, blaming trans rights for Democrats’ loss, is telling of how this bigotry isn’t just limited to Republicans in red states.

As I wrote back in November when I made Matt Yglesias the dingus for scapegoating trans people in the aftermath of the election, “Scapegoating a vulnerable minority to beat the people who scapegoat vulnerable minorities isn’t the move. The solution to having more Nazi-types in power isn’t to go more Nazi.”

(It’s worth noting a handful of people unsubscribed from this newsletter in defense of Yglesias, which shows you that we have our own bigotry to weed out.)

Also, let me just say, I’ve shared a bathroom and shower space with trans people multiple times and never felt threatened. You know where I felt threatened? When the head of the Iowa GOP, Jeff Kaufman, screamed in my face when I was covering a protest in 2019? You know when I felt threatened? In 2020, when the Iowa GOP used my face in an attack ad against then-Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield. I had to get a security system and adopt a dog because of the death threats.

I remember, in the middle of it all, sending an email to Kaufman letting him know how bad it was and that my kids were scared. I never heard back from him.

Also, I was fired from my job as a result of the backlash.

Do you know who has never threatened me or my kids? Trans people.

Which is a very low bar.

You want to protect women? Okay, let’s look at the numbers. How are women hurt and threatened?

The number-one threat to women is intimate partner violence.

According to the World Health Organization:

1 in 3 (30%) of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Worldwide, almost one third (27%) of women aged 15-49 years who have been in a relationship report that they have been subjected to some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner.

Who are the perpetrators? Men. Cis men. It’s also worth noting that men are more likely to be victims of violence — also most often perpetrated by cis men.

The leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide. That’s right, the biggest risk to people once they become pregnant are their own partners.

Missing from all those statistics is evidence that trans people are doing any of this violence. In reality, the real threats to women are their husbands, boyfriends, and fathers.

And data clearly show that trans people are more likely to be victims of violence than cis people. In sum, the real people who need protecting are queer Iowans.

As I wrote back in November: The answer isn’t to be quieter, pull up the rug, make the tent smaller, make our hearts smaller, and retreat. Fuck no. The lesson is to be meaner, be louder, be more ruthless and aggressive in your kindness and love for your communities. Get feral with rage and hope and kindness. And remember, the enemy isn’t your neighbors (well, unless your neighbor is Matt Yglesias or an Iowan Republican legislator); the enemy is the systems and institutions that profit from our labor and leave us nothing but strip-mined humanity in return.

Round 3 of Dingus Madness: The Sour 16

It’s our second annual Dingus Madness tournament. And we are now at round three. It’s JD Vance vs. Jeff Bezos. Pete Hegseth vs. Undecided Voters.

Let’s get to voting! We must crown a Dingus winner (loser?) of this ultimate dinguspalooza. Also, embedded in the voting rounds are links to their dingus writeups. Thank you again to Beau Anderson for doing this for us, you absolute sicko.

And now for something good

Can we just appreciate the incredible talent and courage of Rep. Aime Wichtendahl?

Also, thank you to all the Iowans who flooded the Capitol and shouted, and screamed, and spoke out against bigotry. It was by some calculations the biggest protest in Iowa Capitol History.

Also, friends of the newsletter Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz, V Fixmer-Oraiz, MJ Meidlinger, and Talia Meidlinger were there protesting. They wrote for this newsletter about bigotry in their community in October. In a way, it was an indicator of where America was going.

Some backlash is kind of working.

What I am enjoying

Last weekend, I went to Austin for a conference put on by Abortion in America, the group founded by Cecile Richards. I will have more stories and interviews from the conference in the ensuing newsletters. But for now, I want to say how incredible it was to be among people who are doing the work — who are speaking out and fighting for abortion access for everyone.

And it was hard to hear so many stories of the way that abortion restrictions take away basic human dignity from birthing people and the way bans impact doctors, doulas, and entire families. But I loved everyone I met. Their joy was contagious. There were babies everywhere. And the barbeque was incredible.

My flight back home left early on Monday morning, and so Sunday night I was able to sit on a patio, read a book, eat some tacos and drink an old fashioned and I was so grateful, in the corniest way possible, for my life that brought me here to this moment.

One year ago, I published a book about blowing up my life and getting a divorce. The first half of the book is a cultural and personal examination of divorce and marriage in America, but the last half is a celebration of freedom and community. The book asks us all to consider what life would be like if we were free, really, actually free.

One year of This American Ex-Wife

I know I was in Texas, a state with a restrictive abortion ban, and I was going back to Iowa, another restrictive state. But I’ve worked so hard to free myself, to do this work, to tell these stories, and there is joy in this work too.

And just for some brief moments, last weekend, I did feel free.