Human Rights Commission issues statement on arrest of transgender and non-binary protestors
In recent years, a wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment has spread across the country. The Republican-led Iowa Legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds have embarked on a crusade of hurtful and discriminatory laws that target gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Iowans. These laws ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth and their families. They ban transgender youth from using bathrooms in schools. They erase LGBTQ+ people from the classroom and threaten teachers who would dare to teach LGBTQ history. Along the way, some elected officials and their supporters have employed violent and discriminatory rhetoric to spread fear and hatred.
In 2023, Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Iowa brought speakers that espouse these vitriolic and discriminatory views to Iowa City. Hundreds of students and Iowa City residents showed up last fall to peacefully protest an anti-transgender speaker and voice their support for the rights of our LGBTQ+ community. One month after the event, seven protestors were arrested for their involvement. All of those arrested identify as transgender or non-binary. Their charges are under a new “back the blue” law passed in the wake of the 2020 protests of the murder of George Floyd that specifically criminalizes a standard practice of protest: blocking traffic. The arrest of transgender protestors raises important questions about the actions of law enforcement and the broader functioning of the justice system.
This month, we celebrated what would have been the 95th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a visionary leader and great American whose life was cut tragically short because he dared to speak truth to power. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” written on April 16, 1963, Dr. King says that when a law serves “to deny citizens the first amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.”
Although the law may allow for the arrest and charge of these protestors, we question the purpose of this law and believe that its application in this case falls under what Dr. King described as unjust. During other protests in our community, the Iowa City Police Department has typically redirected traffic to keep people safe, and we encourage all local police forces, including the University of Iowa Department of Public Safety who made these arrests, to take this approach. That approach is preferable to charging people with crimes, which could mean substantial fines and a jail sentence. Instead, this law protects people who seek to harm and silence protestors and its authoritarian, strict enforcement only serves to deny citizens their rights to protest, to peacefully assemble, and to voice their dissent against the government.
Dr. King also wrote in his 1963 letter that the “great stumbling block” to freedom is “the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom.” The use of this new law to charge these seven transgender/non-binary individuals clearly shows a preference for order over justice, at the expense of their freedom.
When laws prohibit people from speaking out while protecting those who wish to harm or silence them, those laws are not only unjust, they violate the human rights of all of us as outlined in Articles 19 & 20 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” and “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”
The arrest of these protestors only serves to further silence the most marginalized and discriminated against among our community. Black and brown people, immigrants, transgender/non-binary, gay and lesbian individuals are all harmed by this unjust law and the blind enforcement of it. When people who stand up for their rights are pushed down, discrimination and hatred are allowed to spread unimpeded throughout our society. We must not let that happen. A free and democratic society depends on the protection of the rights of all humans within it.
The City of Iowa City Human Rights Commission calls for the swift dismissal of these charges. We also encourage our local law enforcement agencies to engage in a review of how future protests are handled to ensure that Iowa City is a place that protects our universal and constitutional right to assemble and speak freely without fear of retribution. Finally, we encourage all community members to be active in support of one another: stand up and speak out when you see targeted discrimination and urge our elected officials to protect the human rights of those most at risk.
