The Iowa City City Council advanced a new city ordinance that would clarify city civil rights protections against sex stereotyping as a form of sex discrimination.
The ordinance would add the definition of sex stereotyping to the city code, clarifying the city’s human rights commission authority to protect individuals against discrimination based on a “sex stereotype.” The ordinance also prohibits penalizing a person or enforcing stereotypes about how a person should appear, dress, speak, behave, or present themselves based on their sex.
The council voted unanimously to pass the first reading of the ordinance on Tuesday, June 2. The ordinance will need approved twice more before it becomes part of the city code.
“We want to make clear that protections remain,” Iowa City City Attorney Eric Goers said Tuesday. “This ordinance is just an attempt to make clear that sex stereotyping remains illegal, that it is something that is not allowed, and, that folks who are gender non-conforming, or who don’t adhere to sex role stereotypes, still have protection in the City of Iowa City.”
Ordinance created despite state law prohibiting trans rights protections
The ordinance comes after Iowa lawmakers enacted a law in March that requires local governments to conform to state civil rights code, prohibiting them from offering protections to characteristics not delineated in the state civil rights code. The law sought to strip protections against gender-identity discrimination from local civil rights codes.
Iowa lawmakers removed gender identity as a protected class from the state civil rights code in 2024. Iowa City and Johnson County instead chose to reaffirm the protections they already afforded to transgender individuals in their civil rights code.
The state civil rights code includes protections against discrimination based on sex, and the city used a definition of sex stereotyping that Goers said has been used and recognized since the 1980s.
The City of Iowa City was among the first cities in the U.S. to enact protections against gender identity discrimination when it added the protected class to its civil rights code in 1995.
After Iowa lawmakers removed gender identity as a protected class, the first such state to do so, the state civil rights code only protects against discrimination based on race, color, creed, marital status, mental disability, national origin, physical disability, race, religion, retaliation, sex, and sexual orientation.
Liam Halawith covers Johnson County local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. Reach him by email at lhalawith@registermedia.com. Follow him on X at @liam_halawith.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Iowa City code classifies sex stereotypes as illegal discrimination
Reporting by Liam Halawith, Iowa City Press-Citizen / Iowa City Press-Citizen
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Liam Halawith, Iowa City Press-Citizen | USA TODAY Network
