In Iowa, hundreds of protesters took to the Capitol building in Des Moines to defend trans rights as lawmakers passed an unprecedented bill stripping civil rights protections based on gender identity. Iowa state Representative Aime Wichtendahl — the first transgender woman elected to Iowa’s Legislature — spoke out against the bill from the House floor.

Rep. Aime Wichtendahl: “This bill revokes protections to our jobs, our homes and our ability to access credit. In other words, it deprives us of our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I bring this up because the purpose of this bill, and the purpose of every anti-trans bill, is to further erase us from public life and to stigmatize our existence. The sum total of every anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal.”