In Iowa, LGBTQ families asking if they still belong after new laws restrict their rights

Jill Bjorklund is planning her family's escape from Iowa.

The teacher and mother of three in Ankeny plans to move to a new state when her 7-year-old daughter, Lily, who is transgender, reaches an age where she wants to seek gender-affirming care.

It's been a hard thing to accept for the family of lifelong Iowans, including Lily's two siblings. A move means leaving behind jobs, friends and a century farm.

"We say it out loud, but I don't know if it's sunk in. It's too hard," Bjorklund said. "You have to almost … disassociate from reality just to get by from day to day."

Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Republican-led Iowa Legislature began 2023 with an intense focus on the gender identity of children.

Last month, Reynolds signed a law prohibiting gender-affirming care — including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries — for transgender kids under 18.

Another new law forbids transgender students from using school restrooms or changing rooms that do not align with their sex at birth.

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Republican lawmakers are working on still more bills that would prohibit instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through sixth grade, and require parents to be notified if their child comes out as transgender at school or requests to use different pronouns.

The changes have left the parents of Iowa's transgender kids to figure out the next steps for their families. Some are seeking medical care out of state, while others, like the Bjorklunds, plan to leave entirely.

"We settled here. We've made a life here. We contribute to our communities. … We should not feel to be made refugees," Bjorklund said.

Other LGBTQ families, even those who aren't directly impacted by the latest laws, told the Des Moines Register that the intense political focus on LGBTQ issues has them feeling afraid, unwelcome and uncertain about their futures in Iowa.

Parents of transgender kids scramble to find gender-affirming care in neighboring states

Sixteen-year-old Gavy Smith has felt the impact of every transgender-focused law Iowa has passed in recent years.

Smith, who is transgender, can't play volleyball anymore, thanks to a 2022 law barring transgender girls from competing in girls' sports.

After a law passed this year prohibiting transgender students from using restrooms that align with their gender identity, Gavy couldn't find an unlocked single-user bathroom at Decorah High School. She used the girls restroom, with a friend standing guard outside — but she still got reported to the principal.

Now, the Smith family is on a tight timeline to continue Gavy's gender-affirming care in a neighboring state. Iowa doctors have until September to stop providing gender-affirming care to their patients under 18.

Tiffany Smith, Gavy's mom, said she has referrals out in Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, including at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where she works. She said it weighs heavily on her that Gavy doesn't have an appointment anywhere yet.

"I have tossed around the idea of moving closer and into the borders of Minnesota," Tiffany Smith said. "… We have lived in Iowa our entire life. And so I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair that we should have to move out of the state that we have called home our entire life."

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Reynolds told reporters that the ban on gender-affirming care for minors was "heartbreaking" but necessary, arguing that "the science is not there to support it." She argued it is in the best interest of children.

"I don’t think it was unreasonable — and I think the majority of Iowans agree with that — to just pause and wait until we get some more data to make sure that we’re not using these children as an experiment," Reynolds said. "Because these are irreversible therapies and surgeries that have long-term effects."

A March Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that 52% of Iowa adults say they favor a ban on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.

However, many major American medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommend providing developmentally appropriate gender-affirming care to transgender kids.

A 2022 report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles estimated that 2,100 Iowa kids between ages 13 and 17 identify as transgender.

Iowa City resident Karen Butler said gender-affirming care was "absolutely critical" for her nonbinary 17-year-old, Ridley, who came out several years ago and received a double mastectomy in Iowa.

"That has made all the difference in their ability to feel good and to look at themselves in the mirror and not cry. To have confidence to move about the world, feeling not like they're in a stranger's body," Butler said.

Butler plans to stay in Iowa and advocate against the laws, even as Ridley plans to apply to colleges out of state.

"My husband and I are certainly encouraging them to do so for lots of reasons, like having the chance to see other cultures and geographies," Butler said, "but the primary one now being the raft of hateful policies that the governor has signed into law. And that makes me sad."

LGBTQ parents feel unwelcome, worry for their kids

As transgender kids deal with the immediate fallout of Iowa's new laws, many LGBTQ families say they're worried by the state's political trajectory.

Tobi Parks, owner of xBk Live performing arts venue in Des Moines and a mom of two, moved to Iowa from New York in 2015. She was impressed by Iowa's pro-LGBTQ history, and she bragged to East Coast friends about the low cost of living and the budding arts scene.

But Parks said the political polarization and the LGBTQ-related bills passed this year have raised questions for her about growing her business and raising her family in Iowa.

"The state is telling me it doesn't want me here. That's really hard to think about, 'Well, do I still want to invest my tax dollars here? Do I still want to invest my money in growing my business here?'" she said.

Some queer parents say they're worried that their children will feel isolated or face bullying in schools because of Iowa's increasingly anti-LGBTQ sentiment.

Ysandril Morrigan and her partner, Gwen Hope, are both transgender. They're raising a 10-year-old daughter in Des Moines.

Morrigan said it's like holding her breath from January through March of each year as they watch the Legislature introduce restrictive bills. She feels like lawmakers have been "emboldened" in recent years to pass negative legislation on LGBTQ issues — and she worries that everyday Iowans are following their lead.

"I'm having to take extra steps now to prepare my child for the possibility that having two parents that are trans could be a measure of how she's bullied," Morrigan said.

Jen Carruthers and Shoshana Salowitz are partners who coparent a 6-year-old son. Salowitz said one of her son's close friends will likely move because of the new laws, and they're worried about what the next 12 years of their son's school experience will look like in Iowa.

"I'm heartsick at the thought of him going through that experience without a beautifully diverse cohort of students alongside him," Salowitz said. "I don't want him to be the only kid with queer parents by the end of his tenure in school, just because everyone else has hightailed it for the sake of their family's safety and well-being."

Salowitz and Carruthers plan to stay in Iowa and continue to oppose restrictive LGBTQ laws, but they say the fight has already been exhausting.

"After three straight legislative sessions that have been highly anti-LGBTQ, this is starting to feel a little debilitating and dejecting," Carruthers said.

Families cling to community through the tough times

Jennifer Harvey, a queer parent in Des Moines, has been open with her children about the LGBTQ laws advancing this year. But when her former partner floated the idea of leaving Iowa, nonbinary 12-year-old Emery shot it down.

"Our kid just said, 'No, we can't move. Because I'm OK, but there's so many kids that aren't and they need us here,'" Harvey recalled.

Harvey and her family have been dedicated for years to creating safe spaces for LGBTQ kids in Iowa. Even before the ban on transgender athletes, Harvey started a youth soccer team that accepts all genders, allowing nonbinary kids like Emery to play sports without worrying about gendered teams.

"Every weekend it's like we have a big party on the sidelines because we're having so much fun and we love each other so much," Harvey said. "The kids all love each other; they all know how to pronoun each other. And it's been such a needed place of joy in such a hard environment."

Members of LGBTQ families across Iowa said they're focusing on ways to lift up the LGBTQ community and celebrate transgender kids in spite of the slate of new laws.

As the Bjorklunds brace to move out of the state to seek gender-affirming care, Jill Bjorklund has also faced backlash to her involvement with a student-organized drag show in 2022. She and two other teachers are suing the Ankeny school district, alleging the district's response to that event was discriminatory.

Bjorklund spoke to the Des Moines Register as an individual and a parent, and not on behalf of the Ankeny Community School District.

Bjorklund said her family tries to "purposefully find joy" as they come to terms with the new laws affecting Lily. They held a party to celebrate Lily's legal name change, inviting friends and family to show her "that she's loved by so many people."

Parks said she's even more committed to keeping xBk alive as a welcoming place for queer Iowans who cannot leave the state — "a place where they can feel like they can be themselves," she said.

And in Decorah, Gavy Smith organized and led her own school walkout, inspired by the large student protests in central Iowa.

Tiffany Smith said she received texts from her daughter through the morning before the walkout: What if nobody comes? What if I'm by myself?

Smith promised she would walk over to the school and support Gavy, regardless of who else joined in. For a few minutes, she waited nervously outside of the school.

"I stood there, and then all of a sudden I heard all these kids hooting and hollering and screaming and stuff," Tiffany Smith said. "And I looked, and there was just a bunch of people coming out. And I was instantly put to tears because I was like, 'Oh, thank God, there's people out there and supporting Gavy.' She was able to make this happen."

Katie Akin is a politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at kakin@registermedia.com or at 410-340-3440. Follow her on Twitter at @katie_akin.