Lawmakers in Iowa on Wednesday voted to expand the state’s contested Don’t Say Gay law, currently applied to K-6 grades, through high school.

A subcommittee voted 2-1 to advance the bill.

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The current law, signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) in 2023, is being challenged as unconstitutional, but was allowed to go forward while it’s being litigated.

That law banned instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation through the sixth grade, and ordered schools to remove books from school libraries that depict “sex acts.”

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The new legislation bars Iowa’s public-school districts and charter schools from providing “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction relating to gender theory or sexual orientation” to K-12 students.

Republican state Sen. Sandy Salmon voted to send the bill to the full committee.

“I think just as not all parents want others to teach their children about sex education because it involves family religious beliefs about sexuality, so not all parents want others to teach children about sexual orientation and gender identity, because it, too, involves family religious beliefs about sexuality and sexual ethics,” she said at a hearing ahead of the vote.

Similar legislation has stalled out recently in the Iowa legislature, including a similar House proposal introduced in 2025.

State Sen. Molly Donahue (D), who voted against advancing the bill, called it “a distraction.”

“Iowans are definitely tired of this type of legislation, and we’re seeing that with the voting records, not just in Iowa but across the United States,” she said. “We are focusing on the wrong things when we bring bills like this.”

At the packed committee hearing, speakers opposed to the proposal widely outnumbered those supporting it, the Des Moines Register reported.

Kayara Hoadley, mom to a nonbinary high school student, told lawmakers in emotional testimony that she asks her child every morning whether they feel safe enough to attend school. 

“Not academically safe, not physically safe, not emotionally safe,” she said. “But simply safe enough to be who they are as a human.”

A member of religious advocacy group The Family Leader, Ryan Benn, claimed, “This bill is about what schools can teach, promote, and ask students about. It’s not about what students can say. It doesn’t limit free speech. It doesn’t give a license to bully.”  

The Iowa State Education Association’s Melissa Peterson argued Iowans have had enough of the culture wars.

“Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could get rid of the distraction of this hyper‑focus on gender theory and sexual orientation? Because it’s not a thing,” she said. “We want to get back to basics.”  

Public comment was short, with all speakers allotted just a 30-minute window.

Wednesday’s hearing is the only point in the legislative process where lawmakers will take live public testimony on the bill.

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