The Iowa Capitol – Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith
The state of Iowa will pay $85,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a group of LGBTQ teens who were expelled from the Iowa Capitol during a 2020 advocacy trip organized by Iowa Safe Schools, after a dispute over bathroom access.
The lawsuit, filed in 2022, claimed that about 150 students and chaperones were unfairly ejected while visiting the Capitol to meet with legislators.
Nate Monson, then the executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, told The Des Moines Register that state troopers barred a smaller group of students from using bathrooms that matched their gender identity and directed them instead to a gender-neutral restroom elsewhere in the Capitol.
Monson intervened, arguing that the troopers’ instructions violated state law, which at the time allowed transgender people to use bathrooms matching their gender identity in public spaces.
“I went up to the trooper and said, ‘No, that’s not what the law says,'” Monson recalled. “The civil rights code includes gender identity. He told me it did not. I told him yes, it did. And he said, ‘Well, it doesn’t include bathrooms.'”
Although no laws had been broken, the lawsuit says Capitol employees demanded that the students to leave the bathroom and then expelled everyone connected to the “Student Day at the Capitol” event.
“These individuals were exercising their constitutional and civil rights when they were singled out and removed from the Iowa Capitol solely because of their identity and their affiliation with an LGBTQ organization. To our knowledge, no other advocacy group has ever faced such a sweeping removal,” said attorney Devin Kelly, who represented Monson and the students, in an interview with ABC affiliate WOI-DT in Ames.
The lawsuit claimed Capitol employees discriminated against the students based on sexual orientation and gender identity and violated their First Amendment right to assemble at the Capitol.
After three years of litigation, the State Appeal Board on September 9 approved a settlement awarding the students $85,000 in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.
One catch: the settlement does not require the state to admit any wrongdoing in the incident.
In a letter to the Board of Appeals, state attorney Jeffrey Peterzalek noted that the students’ claims “would now not be allowed” under Iowa’s updated Civil Rights Act. In February, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law eliminating legal protections for transgender Iowans — the first time a state has removed a previously protected class from its nondiscrimination laws.
Attorney Devin Kelly, who represented the students, hailed the settlement as a victory.
“After more than five years, we are pleased that this case has finally been resolved with justice for our clients,” Kelly told WOI-DT. “At a time when LGBTQ Iowans and their families continue to face growing challenges, this settlement reaffirms a simple truth: all Iowans are equal under the law.”
SJ Joslin, a nonbinary wildlife biologist with the National Park Service, has been fired after joining six others -- including environmental activist and drag queen Pattie Gonia -- in hanging a 55-by-35-foot transgender Pride flag from Yosemite National Park's El Capitan rock formation. The flag, which flew for about two hours on May 20, drew national attention, reports Them.
Hired in 2021 to lead Yosemite's Big Wall Bats Program -- which studies how climbers may spread fungal infections among native bats -- Joslin later became the park's wildlife data scientist. They say they were officially terminated on August 12 in a letter from acting deputy superintendent Danika Globokar.
Owners of several D.C. LGBTQ bars and nightclubs say the federal takeover of the city’s police force -- and the surge of federal agents stationed on 14th Street NW and along the U Street corridor -- cost them thousands of dollars in lost business this past weekend.
Mark Rutstein, co-owner of Crush Dance Bar at 14th and U Streets NW, told CBS affiliate WUSA that August 15 was the worst Friday the bar has seen since opening last year. He estimated losses to be approximately $15,000 for the night.
Rutstein told The Advocate that Crush sat near a multi-agency checkpoint, including agents from the Department of Homeland Security, set up on Wednesday evening. Authorities reportedly made 45 arrests, 29 of them immigration-related.
Court rules state’s expanded “Don’t Say Gay” provisions are unconstitutionally vague, violating the First Amendment and censoring acclaimed literature.
A federal judge in Florida has struck down major parts of the state's expanded "Don't Say Gay" law, ruling that its book banning provisions violate the First Amendment. Approved in 2023, the law not only restricted classroom discussions of LGBTQ identities but also made it easier for any county resident to demand the removal of books from school libraries.
Under the law, once a complaint was filed schools had five days to pull the contested book from shelves, making it unavailable while under review. Districts were required to set up procedures for handling complaints, but those rules were criticized for favoring would-be censors and sidelining parents who opposed bans.
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