Apparently, legislators felt that the inclusion of "gender identity" within the Iowa Civil Rights Act was unnecessary:
“From my standpoint, everything’s already covered, so I don’t see it removes anything that way,” (Rep. Terry) Baxter (of Garner) said. “I just concluded this is a redundancy.”Another lawmaker, Rep. Phil Thompson of Jefferson, was still upset that the Iowa Supreme Court had ruled that otherwise-eligible transgender Iowans should be able to access Medicaid dollars to fund gender confirmation surgical treatments and related care.
Thompson viewed the elimination of "gender identity" from the Iowa Civil Rights Act as the way to prevent future Medicaid recipients from obtaining such medical treatments.
Interestingly, these lawmakers weren't focusing at all on removing "sexual orientation" from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
One Iowa alerted the public about HF 2164 and urged Iowans to tell Iowa lawmakers to back off.
Apparently, they were successful. About an hour ago, One Iowa was alerted by Chairman Steven Holt of Denison that he will not be advancing HF 2164 from his committee. Which essentially killed it.