I'm Angry
All this hate has me at a loss for words.
I’m a writer and, like many writers I know, sometimes I need to write. It’s an outlet for all kinds of emotions - happiness, sadness, fear, disgust. Sometimes words just flow from the keyboard and other times, they drip.
Case in point: This column that’s taken me weeks to write. I started writing it around the time Iowa lawmakers started introducing their priority pieces of legislation. When the “school choice” bill was announced I thought, “Surely people will see how ridiculous it is to take money from public schools and give it to private ones.” They didn’t and it was signed into law.
There was a bill loosening the laws around child labor and one prohibiting Iowa colleges and universities from spending money on DEI initiatives and programming.
Then came the anti-LGBTQ bills, 33 of them in all, including our very own version of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. There were book bans and drag bans, bathroom bills and bills that banned folks from talking about sexual orientation and gender identity with kids in school. The worst of them, perhaps, is one that bans gender affirming care for transgender youth in Iowa.
I was pissed, and I sat down to write about it, but the words wouldn’t come. I was paralyzed by anger. I had no idea how to put my feelings into words because none of it made sense to me. I grew up in Iowa but I was growing increasingly more ashamed to call it home.
Late last year, I started talking seriously to my 16 year-old daughter about her future. Where would she go to college? What did she want to major in? Where did she want to live and work after graduation?
Up until a few weeks ago, she was looking at state schools where she could get an affordable degree. She wanted to teach and hoped to return to her hometown to give back to the district she grew up in.
It all sounds doable until you learn that she’s a lesbian. Suddenly, her plan was upended. Could she attend a college where certain words and phrases were banned from the curriculum? Could she return to the school district she knew so well and be able to talk to students about her sexual orientation? Could she have a photo of her partner on her desk without fear she would be reprimanded or fined for doing so?
These bills, if passed, complicate things for my daughter and thousands of others like her. Iowa doesn’t feel welcoming or safe for kids who identify as LGBTQ anymore. Young, educated, ambitious Iowans have been leaving the state post graduation for decades, determined to make their mark somewhere other than here. It’s a sad thing for the state and its future.
This isn’t the Iowa I grew up in. It’s not the Iowa I promised my kids and it’s certainly not the Iowa they’ll stay in after college. I’ll still encourage them to get an in-state education, because it’s inexpensive, but I won’t try to convince them to stay here when they graduate. I definitely won’t tell them that Iowa is a good place to raise a family, not if these bills become laws.
I finally understood what I was feeling and it isn’t anger, it’s grief. I’m grieving what Iowa was and could have been for me and for my children. Anger is just a stage of the process. It’s hard telling whether I’ll be here long enough to reach the acceptance stage. Something tells me I’m not the only one.
What Inspires Me?
This story, straight from my hometown. Is someone cutting onions?
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Well said, Jody….where did my Iowa go?
Thank you for articulating my feelings. I am terrified and furious about what our state has become. I didn’t realize I was grieving until I read your words.