This week we are meeting on MONDAY!!!
UPDATE – HSB 669 SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS CHANGED ⬇️
🚨 LEGISLATIVE ALERT 🚨
On Monday, February 9, at noon and 12:30pm, Room 103: two dangerous bills, HSB 664 and HSB 669, have subcommittees at the Capitol, starting at noon. While they address different sections of Iowa law, together they form a clear agenda: weaken civil rights protections and normalize harm to LGBTQ+ youth, especially transgender students.
Here’s what you need to know.
🔴 HSB 664: Stripping Local Civil Rights Protections
HSB 664 blocks cities and local governments from adopting civil rights protections that go beyond what state law currently provides.
This bill would:
• Prohibit cities from enacting local civil rights ordinances that respond to discrimination in their own communities
• Roll back protections local governments enacted to cover trans & nonbinary Iowans
• Lock Iowa into the lowest possible civil rights standard, no matter how real or urgent the harm
Local communities have stepped up where the state has failed. HSB 664 silences those efforts and ensures that when discrimination evolves, Iowa law cannot evolve with it.
🔴 HSB 669: Legalizing Conversion Therapy in All but Name
HSB 669 goes even further, by embedding conversion therapy into Iowa law and shielding it from accountability.
The bill explicitly protects caregivers who:
• Force children to live as a sex that does not align with their gender identity
• Deny or block affirming mental health care
• Subject children to therapy designed to suppress or reject their identity
• Refuse consent for gender-affirming care, regardless of medical guidance or harm
By redefining child abuse and child endangerment to exclude these actions, HSB 669 effectively legalizes conversion therapy practices and ensures they cannot be challenged, even when they cause severe psychological harm.
The bill also:
• Prevents courts from considering these practices as harmful in custody cases
• Protects foster and adoptive placements where identity suppression is enforced
• Ties the hands of child welfare professionals tasked with assigning children to compatible families
Major medical and mental health organizations have long recognized conversion therapy as dangerous and unethical. Iowa lawmakers are now moving to give it explicit legal protection.
📣 TAKE ACTION NOW
➡️ Contact the representatives below and urge them to oppose HSB 664 and HSB 669 in subcommittee
👉Contact HSB 664 subcommittee members
• Rep. Steve Holt – steve.holt@legis.iowa.gov
• Rep. Skyler Wheeler – skyler.wheeler@legis.iowa.gov
• Rep. Ross Wilburn – ross.wilburn@legis.iowa.gov
👉Contact HSB 669 subcommittee members
• Rep. Steve Holt – steven.holt@legis.iowa.gov
• Rep. Jon Dunwell – jon.dunwell@legis.iowa.gov
• Rep. Aime Wichtendahl – aime.wichtendahl@legis.iowa.gov
Also happening at noon: Subcommittee Meeting: SSB3115, Room 315.
This bill would:
Gut the telehealth system that supports so much of rural Iowa
Require in-person exams and on-site dispensing for abortion medication
subject healthcare providers to civil legal penalties
allow third parties-including a woman’s parents, grandparents, children, siblings, and biological father to file lawsuits following a medication abortion
expand state tracking of individual personal health data, including miscarriages
Subcommittee:
Schultz, (R) jason.schultz@legis.iowa.gov
Weiner,(D) janice.weiner@legis.iowa.gov
Westrich(R) cherielynn.westrich@legis.iowa.gov
We’re showing up and making sure our elected representation hear from us.
A reminder: please do not bring any weapons to the Capitol.
In solidarity,
Indivisible 515
*A core principle behind all Indivisible events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.*